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LIFE AND SERVICE SERIES 


STUDIES IN THE PARABLES OF JESUS 
HALFORD EB. LUCCOCK 


HEART MESSAGES FROM THE PSALMS 
RALPH WELLES KEELER 


AMOS, PROPHET OF A NEW ORDER 
LINDSAY B. LONGACRE 


ELEMENTS OF PERSONAL CHRISTIANITY 
WILLIAM 8S. MITCHELL 


THE CHRISTIAN IN SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS 
DORR FRANK DIEFENDORF 


DEUTERONOMY, A PROPHETIC LAWBOOK 
LINDSAY B. LONGACRE 


CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 
F. BRNEST JOHNSON AND ARTHUR E, HOLT 


LIFE AND SERVICE SERIES 
SE 
Edited by HENRY H. MEYER 


Christian Ideals 
in Industry 


F. ERNEST JOHNSON 
and 


ARTHUR E. HOLT 
Approved by the Committee on Curriculum 


of the Board of Sunday Schools of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church 


THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
NEW YORK CINCINNATI 


Copyright, 1924, by 
.F. ERNEST JOHNSON 


All rights reserved, including that of translation into 
foreign languages, including the Scandinavian 


Printed in the United States of America 


CONTENTS 


II. Wuat Inpustry DoEs To THE EMPLOYER.... 
Ill. How Inpustry AFFECTS THE WORKER....... 
IV. INDUSTRY AND THE COMMUNITY............. 

V. CoMPETITION FOR WAGES AND PROFITS—THE 


PEER EA BAB MLD GAUNE har tag Ow AM ak ok a 


‘VIL. Curistian FELLowsHie in INDUSTRY—THE 
Ee gr cak Cae OE J Re DLOORIRAD yah Geuaa pum vu este MAMEVE RS OM Rh 


VIII. New Morives For Onp-—ras GOAL OF THE 


X. STANDARDS oF Livinc—-EVERYBODY’S GAME. . 
XI. CyristTians AS INVESTORS—THE RISKS OF 


XIU. Burpine THE FELLowsnHre In INDUSTRY—THE 
CS OMAT ADURN TURBOS eae Wigaa bos 


N 
it 


] 
7a aye 


a Gt ea 
Waa tie 8b 
4 dal ) f 31, 


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Dot Alle 


i a Loe pe 


Gee ie 


FOREWORD 


Tu1s book has been written for the use of young peo- 
ple’s and adult classes in our church schools. It is hoped 
that it may likewise be serviceable to the individual reader. 
No effort has been made to lay down formal principles or 
to prescribe rules for modern industry. Rather, the 
authors have taken it for granted that Christian people 
are fairly clear in their own minds as to the essential prin- 
ciples of Christianity and have therefore sought only to 
aid in determining what these principles require in terms 
of industrial life. The questions that occur so freely in 
the text, and especially those at the conclusion of each 
chapter, are quite as important as anything else in the 
book. We are more interested in stating and analyzing 
the problems than in any specific solutions that may be 
suggested in the text. 

Doubtless there is no one set of correct answers to the 
questions we have raised. The working life of the world 
is so complex that it cannot be dealt with arbitrarily or 
treated dogmatically. The Christian ideal for industry 
cannot be once for all prescribed; it must be worked 
out. It is our hope that what we have written will aid 
serious-minded Christians who have a spirit of inquiry 
and who desire to study the moral problems of industry 
to push a little farther along the Christian way of life. 

Tue AvUTHORS, 


eA 


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rh 


Vos die 


CHAPTER I 


THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM AND HOW IT CAME 
ABOUT 


Genesis 1. 26-30; 13. 7-9; Isaiah 1. 18-20 


Wuy is it that we habitually speak of labor and indus- 
try as “problems”? Are they moral problems, which con- 
cern the ordinary citizen, or are they mainly technical 
questions of business and engineering, with which most of 
us have little to do? Is there any clear distinction be- 
tween technical questions and moral questions? Have we 
as Christian citizens any responsibility for the industrial 
situation? How did the industrial struggle originate, and 
must it remain with us always? 


Tae INDUSTRIAL PRopLEM—WuHOoSsE ProsLEM Is Ir? 


To be sure, it does not seem to be everybody’s problem. 
Plenty of people are not interested in it. Perhaps not 
everyone who has decided to buy this book is really con- 
vinced that the industrial problem is anything he should 
worry about. Probably most of us, unless we are actually 
engaged somewhere in the process of manufacturing goods 
or of selling them, think of industry as something far 
removed from us. 

Nevertheless, all have a very close relation to the work- 
ing world. Industry is so elemental that it “gets” us all. 
Take, for example, the great strikes of 1922, on the rail- 
roads and in the bituminous coal mines. Every business 
man, every worker, every citizen, had something at stake 
in the settlement of those great conflicts. The relation- 
ship is just as close, even if not so conscious, in time of 
industrial peace. If we do not actually gain our living 
through a pay envelope, we are customers of those who sell 
the products of industry, and we have a first-hand inter- 

9 


10 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


est in the quality and price of what we buy. If we, or 
those who earn the money that we live on, are engaged in 
professional or commercial pursuits, the prosperity of the 
community is a matter of first importance to us, and that, 
in turn, depends chiefly on the community’s industries. 
That is to say, a town or city prospers only as its workers 
are employed at good wages so that they can buy what 
they need and thus the merchants may have customers, 
the banks may have borrowers, the doctors’ patients may 
have money to pay them, the lawyers may have a practice 
which only active business can give, and so on all along 
the line. Even the churches reflect very quickly any 
change in the general prosperity of the community. In 
fact, all our activities are closely related to industry. 


Tue War Tuat Has No Armistice 


It is a commonplace that industry to-day is character- 
ized by strife and discontent. Grievances are encountered 
everywhere. There are hostile groups of employers and 
workers which every now and then involve the whole com- 
munity in controversy, sometimes in serious privation and 
loss. Many cities and country communities aré in an 
almost continuous state of stress and strain because of 
industrial unrest and controversy. Some of us have lived 
in or visited cities where strikes were in progress. It is 
nothing less than war on a small scale—and sometimes 
on a fairly big scale. ‘There are communities where a 
deep resentment and hostility smolder all the time in the 
hearts of working people and of their employers. The 
fact is, industrial controversy is so much in the air to-day 
that one may be drawn into it even against his will 
whether he is in a Pullman car or a barber shop. 

This aspect of struggle which the industrial world pre- 
sents affects different people in different ways. Some are 
attracted by it. It offers adventure, a thrilling game with 
great stakes in money, prestige, and power. Some are em- 
bittered by it because of thwarted ambitions and hopes. 
Some look upon it dull-eyed and listless because they 
have already been broken and submerged by it. Some are 
moved to moral indignation because of injustices that re- 


THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 11 


sult from it. They find in the industrial situation a denial 
of the Christian ideal. What shall we find in it? 


PLAYING THE GAME 


Perhaps the most striking thing about modern industry 
is that in spite of all the fighting and the bitterness, and 
in spite of the distress at the lower end of the economic 
scale and the anxiety often suffered at the upper end, the 
work of the world still goes on with a great deal of en- 
thusiasm. ‘To be sure, most of the enthusiasm is among 
those who are “getting on.” There are multitudes to 
whom their daily work is a drab routine. But almost 
everyone who isn’t “getting on” seems to hope later to 
hit his stride. The whole performance is very much of a 
game. For some the stakes are great; for some they are 
relatively small, But for most healthy human beings 
there is in their work, as in their play, an element of 
gamble—a hazard and a hope. Next to bread, men seem 
to demand adventure. In greater or less measure their 
work gives it to them. 

Is it not instructive, when one thinks of it, that we use 
the word “game” so much in describing our serious activi- 
ties? “What business are you in?” a man is asked. “Oh, 
I’m in the chain-store game” is a typical form of reply. 
Young people are counseled as they approach maturity 
and the responsibilities of adult life to 


“Play up, play up, and play the game!” 


The essence of the Rooseveltian morals which have become 
almost a part of American tradition was in “playing the 
game according to the rule.” In his thirty-third year 
Andrew Carnegie cast up accounts and wrote a memo- 
randum which was discovered after his death. In it 
he said, “Whatever I engage in I must push inordinately ; 
therefore, I should be careful to choose that life which will 
be the most elevating in its character.” Here we have it 
again—“push inordinately” ; it is the urge of the game. 

In this respect all people are very much alike, no matter 
to what group they belong. They are playing the same 
game and they seek the same rewards. And because the 


12 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


stakes of the game are limited—because it is a game, and 
somebody stands to win and somebody stands to lose—the 
contest is sharp and often bitter. ‘There must be some 
accounting for the way in which selfishness and bitterness 
and greed have entered into the world of business and 
industry. Are we to take literally the Old Testament 
story of the coming of manual toil as the fruit of “man’s 
first disobedience,” or can work be redeemed and indus- 
trial relations be made happy and wholesome? 


Tue Roap Wr Have TrRAvELED—THE INDUSTRIAL 
REVOLUTION 


We shall have a close-up of this whole situation later 
on. For the present let us inquire how the industrial 
tangle came about, in order that we may play our part 
in whatever needs to be done. For we cannot escape some 
responsibility, even if it is limited to voting on industrial 
questions when they have become political issues. Such 
issues often play a big part in national and State politics. 
The pity of our democracy is that while too few people 
are both intelligent and conscientious about the problems 
to be solved, the worthless opinion—if there is any quite 
worthless—registers as well as any other. Can we not at 
least assume “the moral obligation to be intelligent’? ? 

The industrial situation, to be understood, has to be 
seen against its historical background. The Industrial 
Revolution, which took place in the late eighteenth and 
early nineteenth centuries, worked a profound change in 
the lives of men and women both in England and America. 
It brought about the regime of power-driven machinery, 
whereby the work of many skilled hands could be done 
much more quickly, more accurately, and more cheaply by 
elaborate mechanisms driven by steam. A few inventions, 
accompanied by the rapid development of coal mining, 
made it possible to manufacture enormous quantities of 
goods and thus potentially to improve the standards of 
living. 


Waat tae Macurye Dip ro THe INprvipvAL 
The new factory system brought about great changes 


THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 13 


not only in the organization of industry but in the lives 
of the working people as well. It centered interest in the 
establishment—in equipment, in capital. The individual 
workman became a mere accessory. Hitherto he had been 
central in industry. His status in the community was 
more nearly comparable to that of a professional man than 
to that of a modern factory worker. A trade meant some- 
thing distinctive and gave both economic security and 
social status. What is still more important, the crafts- 
man’s interest prior to the Industrial Revolution was in 
no definite way opposed to that of his employer. He 
passed normally through the three stages—apprentice, 
journeyman, and master craftsman, or employer. Under 
such conditions no labor movement worthy the name could 
arise. But with the beginning of modern industrial 
organization based upon a capitalist system of ownership, 
the cleavage between owner and worker appeared and it 
has steadily deepened. Out of the factory system of manu- 
facture has come a new industrial world. 


CROWDING THE PROPLE Orr THE LAND 


These industrial changes, which were going on in Eng- 
land from, let us say, 1760 on, were accompanied by far- 
reaching agricultural changes. New methods of farm- 
ing were developed with elaborate schemes of draining, 
fertilizing, and rotation of crops; the raising of new crops 
was begun, and new breeds of stock appeared. All 
this caused the millions of tracts of uninclosed common 
land to be looked upon enviously by capitalists who were 
coming forward with greatly increased offerings of money 
to finance large scale production. Thus there was brought 
about the “inclosure” of common lands in such whole- 
sale fashion that the poor who had supplemented their 
incomes by means of these lands suffered new hardship. 
A bit of doggerel of the period tells the story: 


“The law looks up the man or woman 

Who steals the goose from off the common; 
But leaves the greater villain loose 

Who steals the common from the goose.” 


14 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


Laissez Fatrrre—“Lirss GOVERNMENT IN Bustnzss” 


The small landholders, like the domestic manufacturers, 
were engulfed by the new regime. An old civilization 
was passing away. The political status of the worker 
changed. His living had been in some measure safe- 
guarded by the state. At least it was assumed that such 
was the duty of the state. Not so any longer. A new 
doctrine of “individualism” arose, expressed by the French 
term laissez faire—“let alone.” According to this theory 
it was contrary to natural law to attempt to control 
economic forces. They must be allowed to work them- 
selves out. This process was held to be altogether con- 
sistent with religion and humanitarianism, It was by no 
means consciously immoral. On the contrary, it was care- 
fully worked out that the best way to provide for all 
individuals was to let each individual have his own way 
(within the limits of the penal law) and to seek his own 
ends. The idea was that more people would be well 
served if everyone were free to serve himself. Thus “en- 
lightened self-interest”? came into prominence in moral 
philosophy. | 

Why should this system of industrial organization and 
of ethics be called “individualism” ? The record we are 
examining indicates that it worked more havoe among 
individuals than any other philosophy or scheme in his- 
tory. Yet it is not inaptly named, since it vested control 
in the individual—any individual who could exercise it. 
Tt put the mass of individuals at the mercy of the few. 
It said to the state: “Let people alone. Let those who can, 
do.” It was not unlike the slogan we hear nowadays, “Less 
government in business!” Here was the enthronement of 


ws Je the good: old rule, 

- + . the simple plan, 

That they should take who have the power 
And they should keep who can.” 


RELIGION AND PRIVILEGE 


This could result in only one thing—concentration of 
power and privilege in a few hands. And along with this 


THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 15 


change came an interesting religious development. Men 
of vast possessions began to conceive of themselves as 
especially ordained of God to hold the wealth of the world 
in their hands. The magnitude of these changes is ac- 
centuated if we remember that only about two centuries 
before, England was deciding whether it should be law- 
ful for a man to accept interest on his money. Usury, 
now limited in its significance to unlawful interest, 
originally meant interest in any amount. The objection 
to interest, and hence to the very central principle of 
capitalism, was made on scriptural grounds, and it was so 
strong that the first time the English Parliament legalized 
interest it was obliged to rescind its action. Apparently 
the moral and religious sentiment on the subject was over- 
whelmed by the tide of economic development. 


“Orp Worups ror New” 


So gigantic were the changes which preceded and ac- 
companied the Industrial Revolution. An English writer, 
Arthur J. Penty, brought out a book a few years ago 
under the caption Old Worlds for New—turning about 
the title made famous by H. G. Wells.. In it he advocated 
a return to the simple organization of industrial society 
—less machinery, less speed, which would mean less 
luxury goods. He proposed that we should return to the 
state of affairs that existed before the factory system broke 
out in the industrial world. Such a return to the “simple 
life” would certainly have a startling effect on our indus- 
trial order. But is there any likelihood that mankind will 
ever persuade itself that the way forward is to be found 
in limiting the inventive, creative, labor-saving, speed- 
producing activities of modern science? On the contrary, 
even the most idealistic of reformers seem to look for the 
attainment of the ideal not in putting limits upon scien- 
tific progress but in the social control of what we make. 
At the same time, from the Christian point of view, one 
is inclined to ask whether Mr. Penty and those who hold 
with him have not made out a challenging case. Even 
though we assume, as probably most of us do, that modern 
economic and industrial evolution has been inevitable, is 


16 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


it not sobering and salutary to consider the price that 
has been paid for industrialism ? 


Tuer AMERICAN TRADITION 


The laissez-faire idea was given classic expression in a 
book, the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, which ap- 
peared in the very year our Declaration of Independence 
was signed. Thus, while we were declaring political inde- 
pendence of England we were taking over the new eco- 
nomic individualism that was becoming regnant there. 
American industry grew up under the traditions that 
were created at that time. Economic individualism, trans- 
planted to America, throve like a weed in a freshly dug 
garden. Here was unlimited opportunity. Every enter- 
praae person, whatever kind of natural resources he set 

imself to exploit and conserve, had at his disposal the 
lavish provisions of nature. The New World required 
little for its conquest and cultivation save adventurous, 
ambitious spirits who sought to carve themselves fortunes 
out of the wilderness. In this atmosphere of freedom, 
independence, and adventure the ideals of America were 
forged. Those ideals are expressed in such terms as 
independence, private rights, individual initiative, eco- 
nomic freedom—all, of course, within limits laid down by 
the rules of the game. And the rules of the game are 
such as to guarantee to every person a maximum of free- 
dom for the exercise of property rights. 

This process has borne fruit in religion as well as in 
business and industry. ‘The tremendous number of reli- 
gious sects is a reflection of the ideal of free expression 
for the individual. Differentiation rather than conformity, 
freedom rather than discipline, rights rather than duties 
—these have been the emphases. 


Tuer Passine oF THE FRONTIER 


All this worked well in America from the point of view 
of visible, material results, so long as we had a frontier. 
The restless spirit who would not conform or submit to 
discipline had only to push out into the wilderness and 
become a hero and grow rich. America has been explored, 


THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 1% 


conquered, and subdued by people who had a certain con- 
tempt for the restraint of law and convention. Corpora- 
tions obtained concessions of fabulous worth; mineral 
lands were preempted and held against a day of the com- 
munity’s future need; the sites for future cities were 
bought for a song, and their purchasers made millionaires 
in return for nothing but waiting. And while this process 
of concentration was going on, the stratification of eco- 
nomic society was becoming more and more marked. 
Keeping pace with the exploitation of resources were the 
spread of power machinery and the growth and concentra- 
tion of industrial populations. And presently—a decade 
or so before the end of the nineteenth century—the frontier 
became exhausted; there were no more fields to conquer. 
Our great individualistic economic order began to fall 
back upon itself. Prospectors who had found it easy to 
avoid conflict with their neighbors over rival claims, and 
corporate interests that had found it simpler to obtain 
new concessions than to engage in competitive strife now 
had to contend with one another—competition began to 
grow keen. From that time on economic individualism in 
America meant that most individuals were to be pressed 
very close to the ground in order that the few might be 
unrestrained in their pursuit of gain. It would go with- 
out saying, perhaps, that the present industrial situation 
is not the product of anyone’s design—it “just growed.” 


Tue PLIGHT OF THE FARMER 


As in England, our industrial changes have been ac- 
companied by agricultural changes. With the virtual 
exhaustion of public lands, farming has become a pre- 
carious and burdensome occupation save for those with 
abundant skill and resources. Land holdings have tended 
to become concentrated, and tenant farming has become 
more widespread and less profitable. The small farmer 
has found himself in competition with the big manu- 
facturer for labor and for capital as well. 

Thus the farmer’s relation to the industrial situation is 
paradoxical. He is more and more hostile to big combina- 
tions of capital because of the great difficulty he has had 


18 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


in financing his operations. He deeply resents the way 
in which transportation privileges have been monopolized. 
At the same time he has a tendency to be unsympathetic 
with industrial labor because of its demands for higher 
cash wages and shorter working hours. 


Tuer Ciass STRUGGLE 


Thus there has gradually appeared a phase of what 
the socialists call the class struggle. There is, to be sure, 
no unified working-class movement parallel to what is 
found in several European countries, but those who work 
for wages have come little by little to consciousness of a 
common interest and of what they consider a common 
foe. On the other hand, the propertied class and all whose 
interests are identified with theirs tend also to become 
class conscious. ‘The cleavage has deepened since the 
Great War ended. There was a certain recklessness about 
the way labor questions were handled during the war. 
The employer could better afford to settle a dispute on 
almost any terms than to suffer a stoppage. The end of 
the war was the signal for a reckoning, and since the 
Armistice a bitter fight has been waged in American in- 
dustry. 

We are now in an unstable equilibrium of balanced 
hostile powers; yet the return of business prosperity is 
giving some respite. We seem to be on an upward curve 
of the business cycle. Shall prosperity be used for the 
betterment of industrial relations or will the next de- 
pression find us with our lesson unlearned ? 


For tHe Discussion Group 


Do you agree that one of the strongest incentives in 
business and industry is the impulse to “play the game”? 
Do men play a clean game as eagerly as a crooked game? 

Are there aspects of the industrial game that are ob- 
viously unchristian? What are they? Is the difficulty 
with the game itself or with the way in which it is played ? 

Would it be possible to go back to a simpler economic 
order with less luxury, less machinery, and a smaller 


THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 19 


variety of goods? Would it be desirable? Is there any 
likelihood that we shall ever try it? 

Is the element of struggle that we find in the indus- 
trial world a wholesome factor in human life? Is it 
necessary in order to develop character? Is it inevitable? 

If individualism has done harm in the industrial world, 
was it incidental to industrial development, or is the indi- 
vidualistic ideal itself incompatible with Christianity ? 

Is the average worker better off because of the Indus- 
trial Revolution or worse off? Are you thinking in terms 
of income or of personality? 

Some people say that the great game being played in 
business and industry is crude and materialistic, but that 
it is in accord with human nature and that there is no 
alternative. Others say that nothing is wrong except 
that the rules of the game are not always fair; they would 
regulate the competitive struggle. Still others maintain 
that the competitive struggle over the goods of life is in 
itself wrong and needless; they would change the stakes 
of the game from material to spiritual rewards. What 
do you say? 


CHAPTER II 
WHAT INDUSTRY DOES TO THE EMPLOYER 
Matthew 20. 1-14; 25-28 


Onz of two men who were recently discussing the indus- 
trial situation remarked, “I wish we could have a calm 
consideration of the question, Who is being hurt in in- 
dustry to-day?” He meant that the whole situation is so 
marked by conflict and partisanship and admits of so 
many contrary yet plausible contentions that the only 
way to proceed with any assurance is to consider dis- 
passionately everybody’s grievance—or, to put it slangily, 
to listen to everybody’s “squeal.” Would not this be a 
good way to approach our task, asking the question suc- 
cessively for the employer, the worker, and the consumer 
—meaning by that term, of course, the whole community ? 
First, then, how is the employer hurt in industry to-day ? 
Not merely in a physical or financial sense, but morally, 
spiritually? Is the industrial game unfair to ‘him? 
Would the average employer change places with one of 
his employees ? 


Frttow SUFFERERS IN INDUSTRY 


An enterprising newspaper writer a few years ago intro- 
duced a friend of his who was a member of the I. W. W. 
to another friend who was a millionaire business man. 
They met in the latter’s library, and he took possession 
of the interview from the start. The one-sided conversa- 
tion was something like this: “You fellows think you are 
badly used. As a matter of fact, you don’t know what 
trouble and hardship are. You have no properties to 
defend, no investment to worry over, no trusts to be re- 
sponsible for. You don’t know what it is to lie awake 
at night with a business man’s load of care on your mind.” 
Before he could go further, his new acquaintance stretched 
out his hand and said, “Brother, this damned social order 


20 


INDUSTRY AND THE EMPLOYER 21 


ain’t no good for either of us, is it?” Perhaps no inci- 
dent could have shown more dramatically the heritage of 
trouble that is visited upon both sides of the present in- 
dustrial world. 

Another very illuminating incident is one that has been 
related in the press about the West Virginia coal mine 
that is owned by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. 
This is an extraordinary example of a labor group turn- 
ing employer and experiencing the ills that employing 
flesh is heir to. A strike was called by the mine workers’ 
union against the union owners of the mine. Such a 
quarrel always has at least two sides, but on its face it 
indicates that if two groups of union men, when one of 
them begins to play the réle of employer, encounter seri- 
ous difficulties, a lifelong employer who has less oppor- 
tunity to know the workers’ point of view ought to be 
listened to with respectful attention, whether in any par- 
ticular case he is right or wrong. 


Tur Hazarps or BUSINESS 


The employer is at a tremendous advantage over the 
industrial worker in that he owns the works and his im- 
mediate hazards are fewer. A month of sickness will 
not pauperize him. A quarrel with a foreman will not 
cost him his job. But he has a multitude of hazards of 
which the workman knows nothing. One month he may 
be highly prosperous with all the contracts he can fill, and 
in another month, owing to a sudden change in the 
market for either his raw materials or his finished goods, 
his profits may be wiped out. A financial stringency may 
cost him his customary credit at the bank; a change in 
competitive conditions may shift him from the foremost 
ranks to the rear of the industrial procession; a physical 
disaster may wipe out his property beyond all possibility 
of adequate reimbursement by insurance; laws may be 
passed that make hitherto perfectly legitimate practices 
illegal; a strike, due to conditions over which he has no 
control, for demands with which he may even sympathize, 
may virtually ruin his business. Aside from all these 
catastrophic happenings, the employer may habitually 


22 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


suffer from a noncooperative spirit on the part of the 
workmen which he is at a loss to understand. They may 
use obstructive tactics—sabotage; they may limit output 
for reasons which appear to them wholly justifiable; yet 
the result may be that the employers’ prosperity is turned 
into a serious reverse. 


THe “Harp-Hreapep Business Man” 


We speak commonly of “hard-headed” business men— 
sometimes latterly the term used is “hard-boiled.” Per- 
haps it is not too much to say that the type those words 
describe is the natural product of a business regime 
that abounds in risks, in unpredictable events, in hard 
competitive struggles, in personal disillusionments, and 
in at least as many disastrous failures as successes. When 
it is remembered that a very large proportion of indus- 
trial enterprises fail, it hardly seems inaccurate to say 
that an industrial employer’s career is less the pursuit 
of success than the attempt to escape failure. Such is 
the effect of our highly competitive order. If we are seek- 
ing a Christian ideal for industry, it must be one that 
can successfully take account of the situation we have 
been picturing. | 

It happens not infrequently that an employer, through 
getting a “rotten deal,” loses his sympathy for labor. One 
of the present writers has an employer friend of fine char- 
acter, whose conscience is as sensitive to inequities in in- 
dustrial relationships as to a failure in personal integrity. 
He urged his employees to join a union. After they had 
done so, a new kind of leadership appeared, a disastrous 
strike followed, he suffered attacks upon his property 
(which injured his feelings more than his buildings), and 
now he says, “Never again!” Yet in a tone of troubled 
seriousness, he added to the narrative of his experience: 
“If the men are not organized, they will be exploited. 
What can I do?’ But when the fight broke he fought 
like the others—fire with fire. 

Then, too, many employers are unfeignedly fearful of 
radicalism. How much ground there is for this fear is 
not in question here; only the fact of the employers’ atti- 


INDUSTRY AND THE EMPLOYER 23 


tude matters. And just as the tendency prevails in gov- 
ernment and in education, especially since the Great 
War, to foster “correct thinking” by repressing what is 
considered to be wrong, so the employer tends to oppose 
radicalism by belligerent and repressive measures. He 
may confuse very harmless undertakings and very proper 
aspirations with “red” propaganda because he does not 
understand them. And the vague fear that he harbors 
makes him nervous, irritable, and hard to get on with. It 
is quite common for employers to classify all labor repre- 
sentatives and organizers as “agitators” and to treat them 
as enemies. And so long as industrial relations rest on a 
competitive struggle over wages and work conditions, only 
the employer with much sympathy and discernment is 
likely to feel otherwise. 


Tuer Mora Hazarps or EMPLOYERS 


The intellectual perplexities and moral hazards of the 
employer in the present industrial situation are beyond 
computation. One is sometimes amazed to find how warm 
a heart beats beneath an exterior of resentment and sus- 
picion. An employer, recently, in conversation with a 
minister, maintained an attitude of reserve until he found 
that the other man had some understanding of his diffi- 
culties; then he opened up and confessed his own yearn- 
ing for an ethical and spiritual adjustment of the contra- 
dictory elements in his experience. 

From an ethical point of view the employer is perhaps 
harder hit in industry than the worker. That is to say, 
he has to face most contradictory situations. Take, for 
example, the employer who professes allegiance to Chris- 
tian standards of conduct, who believes in the Golden 
Rule and the ideal of service and “stewardship.” How 
can he live up to all these ideals and still build up his 
business on a margin so small that his employees have to 
live on less than even a conservatively estimated living 
wage? 


THe Emproyer’s Cop or Etutics 
A recent analysis of this problem, given by a well- 


24 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


known employer, is very illuminating in that it shows 
the ethical predicament in which a man with professed 
high ideals may find himself. Surely we shall make little 
headway in quest of the Christian ideal save as we take 
account of such actual situations and practical necessities 
as are here disclosed. This employer asked the question, 
“What is my duty as an employer of labor?” And he an- 
swered it in brief thus: “I must employ my men under 
good, wholesome conditions of work, and I must pay them 
just wages—but no more.” Then he asked the question, 
“What is my duty to my employees as a man?” And in 


- answer to it he reasoned thus: “If a workman has received 


just wages, has had everything from me that my duty as 
an employer dictates, and is still in need and comes to 
me as a man for assistance, then as a brother I must be 
generous with him. The two relationships are entirely 
separate and must not be confused.” Now, the interesting 
thing about this analysis is that it is inevitable unless one 
questions the moral quality of the existing system of rela- 
tionships. If “just” wages are determined by a law that 
has no reference to brotherhood, if corporate relations 
are one thing and personal relations another, then one 
need not be concerned about the Christian ideal for indus- 
try. On that supposition one learns from economics how 
to be a good employer, and from ethics and religion how 
to be a good man. Whatever may be said for this dual- 
ism, no justification for it can be found in the New Testa- 
ment. 


CAUGHT IN THE MACHINE 


The point is that the employer is primarily a business 
man seeking to make money. He is driven relentlessly by 
the logic of his position to the acceptance without ques- 
tion of the existing commercial regime in industrial so- 
ciety. Thus he becomes less and less concerned about an 
inclusive Christian ideal.. His conscience is satisfied if he 
obeys the rules of the game. 

Not the least disadvantage, morally, of an employer is 
the hardening effect of being forced to be always on the 
defensive. With an active “progressive” movement in 


INDUSTRY AND THE EMPLOYER 25 


politics, and an aggressive labor movement, the employer 
is tempted to disregard all moralizing, to take a cynical 
attitude toward his critics, and to go complacently on his 
own way. He finds escape from an intolerable situation 
by assuming a certain hardness and indifference. There 
could scarcely be a better illustration of this attitude than 
the report that emanated from the American Iron and 
Steel Institute in the spring of 1923 on the proposal to 
eliminate the twelve-hour day. It was an extraordinary 
document defending the long working day and setting at 
naught the contrary findings of scientific investigators and 
the protests of citizens and churchmen. Many of the 
men who voted to adopt the report are themselves church- 
men whose earnestness could not be questioned. But the 
business of being a manufacturer and an employer in a 
time of bitter controversy breeds cynicism and renders a 
man less susceptible to elemental human considerations. 
All this suggests the well-known tendency of business 
men to keep matters of personal friendship separate from 
business matters lest the former be destroyed by the latter. 
A Congressional committee which was considering, a year 
or so after the Armistice, the sending to Europe of fifty 
million bushels of wheat out of the profits of the United 
States Grain Corporation, for the relief of suffering there, 
met the appeals of representative churchmen and citizens 
with a remarkable coolness, declining to be moved by 
“sentiment.” It was a typical “hard-headed” business 
reaction, and had no visible relation to the private char- 
acters of the men. They were not, at least in the capacity 
in which they were there assembled, employers or busi- 
ness men, but they had been molded to a business psy- 
chology. 


A Business Man at His Worst 


Furthermore, a man who is a very humane employer 
and who gets on well with his men may be hard and 
unfeeling when he acts as spokesman for employing inter- 
ests. ‘The more representative he becomes, the more 
belligerent he is likely to be. A certain railroad president 
is thought well of by his men and the unions with which 


26 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


he deals; but when he speaks for the railroad executives 
of the country he acquires the attitude of a generalissimo, 
whose business it is to put up a stiff fight and give no 
quarter. 

The activities of many employers’ associations are 
_ belligerent in the extreme, and their publicity efforts irri- 
tating, mischievous, and positively misleading, although 
the individual members are men of fine character and not 
at all harsh or crude in their personal attitudes. These 
very men will criticize labor leaders, and often justly, on 
the ground that they misrepresent their membership, 
while they themselves employ publicity men and associa- 
tion organizers whose main qualification is their capacity 
to fight with cruel and dishonorable weapons. It may 
well be argued that the “open-shop” war of the past three 
years would never have aroused such bitterness if em- 
ployers had fought their battle themselves instead of 
allowing hirelings to do it for them—men who had no 
first-hand interest in industry nor any adequate knowl- 
edge of labor and who considered that they must smash 
Jabor organizations in order to earn their salaries. 


THE CONSCIENCE OF A CoRPORATION 


It would be quite unfair to employers as individuals not 
to take account of the peculiar responsibilities of corpora- 
tions. Directorship in an industrial corporation carries 
with it a responsibility not only for employees but for 
investors. Because wages are assumed to be regulated by 
the “labor market,” the director keeps his mind on earn- 
ings and risks and other questions pertaining to finance. 
The investors are often for the most part people of moder- 
ate income. They are as likely to complain as the workers 
are if they do not get a “living dividend.” Like banks, 
industrial corporations usually try to play safe; they will 
risk anything rather than the loss of their capital. Then, 
too, they act at several removals from the people whom 
their acts affect. The classic expression of Professor 
Ross, “sinning by syndicate,” is always in point. The 
human consequences of the decisions reached in directors’ 
meetings are often but dimly seen. 


INDUSTRY AND THE EMPLOYER 27 


A Goop EMPLOYER AND A Bap MANAGER 


Moreover, few people realize what the employer of an 
idealistic turn of mind is up against when he tries to 
change things in his own plants. Industrial managers 
are hard to get. Those who are successful were trained 
in the days when “hiring and firing’ was a simple and 
crude process. They change the ideas and habits of a 
lifetime with great difficulty. There is a common fiction 
that a wealthy man who owns fifty-one per cent of the 
stock of a corporation can have his own way in a matter 
of policy by the mere act of voting. As a matter of fact, 
many an owner finds himself in a position of humiliating 
helplessness because of his inability to impart his own 
views and desires to his organization. An expert plant 
manager or mine superintendent will sometimes bring 
his fist down on the table before his theoretical superior 
who wants to change the labor policy and say: “I have 
other matters to think of besides labor conditions. I. am 
delivering to you on twenty things. Don’t rock the boat 
by interfering in one of them.” It is not a question of 
discharging a hard-boiled manager; he must be converted 
and trained over again. 

A socially minded employer will, of course, not claim 
an alibi because he cannot control things all the 
way down the line. The situation is a result of a long his- 
tory of irresponsibility. The recent troubles in bitumi- 
nous coal fields have shown that the most inexcusable prac- 
tices can go on without the knowledge of officers of the 
company in question. A veritable conspiracy may exist on 
the part of superintendents and foremen against what 
they consider the impracticable ideas of men “back in New 
York,” who do not know conditions on the field. The 
case is very similar to that of Lincoln’s interference for 
humanitarian reasons with discipline at the battle front. 
There is a tradition in industry that the officers of a com- 
pany should never interfere in matters of labor policy any 
more than in the matter of placing machinery or routing 
materials through the plant. 

Great advance is being made by some concerns through 


28 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


an entirely new discipline of personnel management. 
Little by little, employers and great corporations are be- 
coming conscientious on this subject, are making re- 
searches on their own account, and are seriously asking 
not merely what is expedient but what is right in indus- 
trial relations. 


For tHE Discussion GRouUP 


If you were a workman would you be willing to accept 
the employer’s burdens if you could have his advantages? 

Under present conditions can an employer live up to 
Christian standards and still maintain himself in a com- 
petitive market? 

What do you say of the employer’s analysis, given in the 
text, of his duty as an employer and his duty as a man? 
Does Christianity require anything more than justice? 
Does it require that a man be generous at the risk of going 
bankrupt? 

Does the term “hard-headed business man” describe a 
real type? If so, is it a matter of individual tempera- 
ment or is that type the natural product of a commercial 
and competitive regime? Do business men in general 
like the term? : 

Is “sinning by syndicate” any more excusable than sin- 
ning alone? Is it any more understandable? 

What responsibility, if any, has a corporation director 
for unethical acts of the corporation, of which he does not 
approve? , What course is open to him? Would resign- 
ing simplify the matter? 

If an owner in New York or Chicago finds that he can- 
not have his way in labor policy in his plants at Louis- 
ville or Omaha, is he thereby relieved of responsibility ? 
What can he do? 


CHAPTER III 
HOW INDUSTRY AFFECTS THE WORKER 
Exodus 1. 8-14; Isaiah 10. 1, 2 


How is the worker being “hurt” in industry to-day? 
Has he a just ground for complaint, or are his grievances 
exaggerated? Does he get enough wages? Some people 
think labor is too highly paid. What is the personal status 
of the workers as to security, initiative, self-expression ? 
What of the labor unions—are they good for the workers? 
Are they good for the rest of us? Should they be curbed 
or encouraged ? 


Tar Workers Heritage From THE INDUSTRIAL 
REVOLUTION 


The Industrial Revolution, which we sketched in the 
preceding discussion, has had a pronounced effect on the 
lot of the individual worker. He plays a very different part 
in modern industrial life from that played by his gilds- 
man ancestor. What relation has this change to the Chris- 
tian ideal? It goes without saying that a primary pur- 
pose of industry is to produce goods. But would not 
Jesus’ way of looking at the matter be something like 
this?—-We must have goods—bread, cloth, wood, metal, 
leather, and so on, but to what end? Does commerce exist 
for man, or man for commerce? If the making of goods 
for man as consumer works a great injury to man as 
producer, is not the end of industry frustrated? We must: 
learn how to make the goods of life in a way that will en- ” 
rich the lives of those who work. If that is a Christian 
ideal, it is to be feared we are pretty far from its realiza- 
tion. 

What effect does the thing called division of labor have 
upon the thing called personality? Every person wants 
to count in some definite way and to fulfill some definite 


29 


30 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


purpose. Is it not much easier to play a definite part in 
the world of work if a person makes and sells a com- 
modity for which he acquires a reputation than if his work 
is confined to a few blows of a hammer or a few turns of 
a lathe, whose effect only a skilled artisan can appreciate 
and which the user of the finished product is hardly aware 
of? 

Consider the very honorable though insufficiently recog- 
nized trade of cooking, and suppose that it should be com- 
pletely factoryized so that a score of people instead of one 
participated in the making of a pie. Without regard to 
the effect on the product, which might, of course, be 
thoroughly beneficial, would not the psychology of the 
whole business be seriously changed? When a person 
cannot be more or less identified with his work in the 
finished product, whether it is making violins or digging 
post holes, he profits in his personality but little from the 
operation. | 


Wuat It Means to Own Noruinae 


The loss of ownership of one’s tools has the same gen- 
eral effect. Just as a musician acquires proficiency with 
a specific instrument and a fondness for it, just as a ball- 
player becomes devoted to a certain bat or glove, or a 
golf player to his pet driver, so a mechanic becomes 
attached to a particular set of tools. If he owns them, 
he is by that fact so much more an artisan. Mr. Whiting 
Williams gives a pathetic picture of a worker’s relation 
to a tool which he has come to regard as an indispensable 
possession.t He tells of a “hunkie” laborer who fought 
like a tiger for the possession of a shovel. “My shovel! 
I use it t?ree mont’s. My shovel—he take it2? The owner- 
ship of one’s tools, like the ownership of one’s house, is an 
expression of personality. In this case, of course, the 
ownership was fancied. : 

It may be said that the worker in this respect is no 
worse off than the average “white-collar? worker who 
does not even own the pen and ink with which he writes, 


1 What's on the Worker’s Mind, p. 36. 


INDUSTRY AND THE WORKER 31 


to say nothing of the stenographer whose pencils belong 
to the “house.” It is perhaps a sufficient answer that the 
status of such workers is, indeed, often quite comparable 
to that of the factory worker, but that in the life of the 
office worker there are frequently intellectual and social 
compensations. 


Tue Dreap oF Lostmne A JOB 


The loss of ownership of one’s tools which has come 
about with the modern factory system robs the worker 
of independence and security. This change has gone hand 
in hand with the loss of ownership of his home. He has 
now become a tenant in his home and a tenant in the shop. 
He is there by favor, not by right, and even if the sharp- 
ness of this dependence is taken away by the most con- 
siderate treatment, his status is none the less fortuitous. 
This fact contributes much to the discontent in industry 
to-day. Mr. Williams has given a classic account of the 
effect of unemployment, not merely in actuality, but in 
menace. “Last night for an hour I stood at the gate with 
twenty-five others, Negroes and foreigners, peering 
steadily into that plant while the two policemen looked 
at us from above their blue-coated stomachs as though we 
were so many hogs threatening to rush in and eat up the 
place. Men don’t seem to chat or make friends then, be- 
cause each feels the other his competitor; so we all stood 
shivering, silent, and intent. Whenever we saw anyone 
we thought might be the boss, we all hunched up our 
shoulders so as to look husky and tried to catch his eye.”+ 

This great defect in our industrial system can perhaps 
be best seen against the background of efforts to do away 
with it. The Columbia Conserve Company in Indianapolis 
has undertaken to put its workers on a salary basis, so 
that they draw their pay even though temporarily unem- 
ployed. Unemployment insurance is being carried out in 
some plants. The Dutchess Bleachery at Wappingers 
Falls, New York, sets aside a sinking fund to pay a part 
of the workers’ wages during enforced unemployment. 


1 What's on the Worker’s Mind, p. 6. 


3R CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


The president of the National Association of Manufac- 
turers, who is in the blanket business, relates how he ran 
his plant for five months without a profit merely because 
he considered it right to keep his organization intact and 
to avoid unemployment. But here, again, merely to cite 
examples of this sort is to emphasize the fact that they 
are not typical. 


THe “Company Town” 


An extreme illustration of the plight of the modern 
industrial worker is found in the “company towns,” espe- 
cially in mining districts, where the worker has a home 
only so long as he works for the company, and where 
everything that he touches belongs to the company. He is 
even deprived of the experience of participating in reli- 
gious or civic activities in his own right and under con- 
ditions within his own power to determine. 

Much has been written in the last three years or so — 
about conditions of this sort in Pennsylvania and West 
Virginia. Perhaps the mistake has been made of simply 
reciting grievances and delinquencies without explaining 
their origin or indicating any of the difficulties in the 
way of overcoming them. In most cases the explanation 
is probably to be found in that tradition of individualism 
in American industrial life which we briefly traced. New 
territory has been opened up by industrial enterprises, 
particularly in mining and lumbering districts, much 
faster than civic and political organizations have de- 
veloped, and the company which has opened a mine in a 
mountain district has had to bear responsibility for sani- 
tation, policing, recreation, education, and even for reli- 
gious service. The result is a paternalism that is shock- 
ing to those who believe in democracy. The employers 
are not bad men; indeed, they are likely to be more 
actively interested in social betterment than employers 
elsewhere. We call them “paternalistic.” Yet in many 
cases if they did not “paternalize,” the most elemental 
social necessities would be entirely neglected. The trouble 
is that they have made provision for men’s bodies more 
than for their personalities. They have been face to face 


INDUSTRY AND THE WORKER 33 


with a situation that they did not understand. In such 
regions labor has fallen into a state of virtual vassalage. 


Wuen Men Become SAVAGES 


The reaction of labor to such conditions has been sharp, 
resentful, sometimes violent. Anyone who wishes to know 
the American industrial situation at its worst—that is, at 
its farthest from a basis of good will and cooperation— 
need only study what happened at Blair Mountain in West 
Virginia in 1921 and in Herrin, Llinois, in 1922. The 
“armed march” of mine workers through West Virginia 
and the brutal killing of “scab” miners in Illinois, with 
the approval of a whole community, by men ordinarily 
mild-mannered and law-abiding, gives food for serious 
thought. The superficial view of these happenings is that 
men suddenly became criminals and committed outrages, 
and that a recurrence can be prevented only by severe 
punishment. But drastic action seems to be as little a 
deterrent of violence in industrial disputes as it is in any 
other sphere of activity; the remedy must be found in a 
larger measure of liberty under law and a greater degree 
of cooperative action based on conference and under- 
standing between the parties in controversy. The fight- 
ing animal in our inheritance is never far from the sur- 
face. We can insure ourselves against a periodic resort 
to savagery only by organizing our life on the basis of 
good will. Which, after all, is more important—that we 
should have all the coal we want, when we want it, or that 
while we are mining coal, we should also build men and 
promote fellowship ? 

All this is recounted not merely by way of indictment, 
but by way of description, in order that we may see what 
the attainment of the Christian ideal involves and what 
are the obstacles that must be overcome. Strangely 
enough, outbreaks of violence are usually seized upon 
merely as evidences of inordinate brutality on one side 
or the other rather than as evidence that our present war- 
like regime in industry sometimes puts a strain upon hu- 
man nature that neither employers nor workers are able 
to bear. 


34 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


Wuen Macutnes Run Men 


The division of processes of machine labor makes no- 
toriously ill-proportioned demands upon the powers of 
the worker, overfatiguing some and letting others lie 
idle. In most machine work there is nothing to create 
interest and joy, to arouse curiosity, or to create the 
desire to overcome a difficulty. This want of stimulation 
of the natural and instinctive tendencies of mental life 
not only produces a painful result, but is responsible for 
nervous derangements without number. Excesses that are 
severely condemned on moral grounds may be traced to 
the lack of free play for normal tendencies. The stream 
dams up and overflows. These baneful effects are ac- 
centuated by the similar consequences of housing conges- 
tion and the spiritual inbreeding of tenement life. 

A few years ago when the labor difficulties following 
the war reached alarming proportions, a writer in a cer- 
tain conservative journal, commenting on the cause of 
unrest, said: “But the new era has put personality in a 
steel niche, and it must stay put, else large-scale produc- 
tion is impossible. The strikers on our streets to-day are 
‘Imen entering a blind protest against a system that has 
taken the fun and romance out of their work. : : 
Some plan must be found whereby men may become inter- 
ested in their day’s work—this is fundamental. It is a 
twentieth-century problem, and history gives us no clue 
to the solution.” Such considerations do not invalidate 
the division of labor, but they do suggest that the culture 
of personality, if it is to take place at all in industry, 
must be transferred from industrial processes to other 
processes. What these processes may be, we must consider. 


Tur Hazarps or AN Inpusrriut AGE 


The accidents that occur in modern manufacturing and 
mining are a matter of common remark. Several mine 
disasters in the last two or three years have given tragic 
emphasis to the fact that an industrial worker contracts 
not only his labor but in a very true sense his personal 
security and the happiness of his family as well. To be 


INDUSTRY AND THE WORKER 35 


sure, the complexity of modern life, the high speed of 
traffic, and the appropriation of the sky and the sub- 
terranean regions, to supplement the space offered by the 
meager surface of the earth—all these peculiar marks of 
our civilization take their inevitable toll of life and limb 
quite apart from industry; but the fact remains that many 
of what we consider essential occupations could never be 
carried on but for the quiet acceptance by thousands of 
workers of conditions which to the craftsmen of the Mid- 
dle Ages would have seemed hazardous in the extreme. 


Tue Doxnrs oF THE Dirty WorK 


The specialization of industrial labor also condemns 
many persons to permanent performance of tasks that are 
considered menial and that are distasteful to any person 
who has been touched by culture. The dirty work of the 
world is done by those who come to be regarded as the 
dirty people of the world. The fact that many of them 
accept their lot without serious protest’ only emphasizes 
the degradation that they suffer in the minds of their 
fellows. One cannot examine carefully an industrial com- 
munity without being impressed with the tendency to- 
ward caste which increases with the growth of our indus- 
trial system and the increase of our industrial popula- 
tion. Perhaps the most serious aspect of industry from 
the Christian point of view is the gulf that is built up 
between groups of human beings, all of whom are doing 
tasks that are essential to society as a whole, yet many 
of whom do their work without honor. 

This problem strikes most of us right where we live. 
How is it that we can very largely overcome the tendency 
to caste in our college communities, where a young man 
may tend furnaces or a girl may wash dishes to pay board 
and not forfeit personal standing by it, while in organ- 
ized adult community life a “menial” task sets definite 
limits to social relationships? 'This observation has refer- 
ence more especially to city life, where specialization is 
greater, but, after all, every community has its aristocracy 
and its plebeians. What is wrong? 


36 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


A GREAT GuLF FIXED 


The depersonalizing of the employer-employee rela- 
tionship is another effect of the present industrial regime. 
Employers come to think of workers as a mass of “hands,” 
whose wills and desires express themselves seldom save 
through agitators, and who constitute an inert mass that 
resists all efforts at improved efficiency and better produc- 
tion. Few employers who maintain large plants really 
know the men who work in them. Rather, they know their 
“labor” in the mass and they impute in a vague way to 
the whole labor force the ideas and purposes that are con- 
veyed to them by belligerent spirits. Thus “labor” as the 
employer thinks of it is often an abstraction, not a reality. 
The complementary fact is quite as striking and as seri- 
ous. Large employers’? names become to working men 
synonymous with the aggressiveness of the capitalist 
system at its worst. This condition is accentuated when 
organization among the workers is lacking. The oppor- 
tunity for conference and for the presentation of griev- 
ances is a tremendous offset to the inferiority of status 
that labor suffers. It makes all the difference in the world 
whether employers and labor leaders get their informa- 
tion about each other through direct contact or through 
underground channels. 

The spy system in industry as carried on by multitudes 
of employers is another factor in widening the breach. It 
would be impossible to overestimate the harm done and the 
bitterness engendered by it. It is a kind of fire that is in- 
variably fought with fire. It leads to grave misappre- 
hensions on both sides. Three years ago the church forces 
in Denver, Colorado, assisted by national church bodies, 
investigated a serious industrial conflict between the 
street-car company and its employees, a conflict that had 
cost the lives of several innocent people. This is what 
their report said about the spy system that still prevails 
very widely in industrial America: “It is contended that 
this is an unavoidable practice. But a sensitive con- 
science can only look with stern disapproval upon a prac- 
tice which substitutes suspicion for confidence and 


INDUSTRY AND THE WORKER 37 


treachery for honest dealing. The spy system defeats it- 
self. It deceives no one, and it invites counterespionage. 
Its agents tend to provoke the evils which they are sup- 
posed to check. It is admittedly a war measure. Must 
we admit that industry is normally war? The whole 
system is undoubtedly one of the most disruptive influ- 
ences in our industrial order.” 


TrapE Unions—Goop or Bap? 


From one point of view it might almost be said that 
the consequences of the present industrial regime are 
equally serious for labor whether it is organized or not. 
Physically, materially, there is no question as to the 
gains of the workers through trade unionism. ‘The in- 
justice of preventing such organization is now very widely 
asserted. Yet even the best-disciplined and best-led unions 
are belligerent in their tactics, and the prejudice against 
labor leaders and “agitators” is not hard to understand. 
The best labor leader, from the point of view of his own 
constituency, is the best bargainer and the best fighter. 
As a result of many conflicts, labor has come to think in 
terms of hostility and combat. Strike threats are too 
easily resorted to and often too irresponsibly carried 
out. If this is a misfortune to the community and to the 
employers, it is more serious in its spiritual consequences 
to the laborers themselves. 

What is the remedy? Seebohm Rowntree, the 
British Quaker cocoa manufacturer, says that labor leaders 
in England were of the same belligerent, noncooperative 
type that is complained of here until the employers stopped 
fighting the unions. Then the unions stopped electing 
see as leaders and chose men of more statesmanly 
mold. . 


THE QUESTION OF BREAD 


Underlying all other problems in industry is the fact 
of insufficient income, with its train of evil consequences 
in bad housing, poor health, meager education, and bitter 
feeling. It is overlooked by most of us because we see 
the bricklayer’s twelve dollars a day so large that it ob- 


38 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


scures the low pay of the unskilled. No matter whose 
estimate of a living wage is taken, there are multitudes 
of workers living below the most conservative standard. 
But “the living wage” is a vague term, and employers 
are ceasing to take it seriously. The Railroad Labor 
Board calls it a “bit of mellifluous phraseology.” But we 
shall recur to this subject later. 


For THE Discussion GROUP 


Must the limitations of the factory system be accepted 
by labor as unavoidable? Is the worker better off under 
the highly specialized factory regime, where he makes but 
a few motions and learns no trade so long as he can make 
more money? Is the development of personality to be 
wholly left to leisure time occupations ? 

A workman, asked about the nature of his job, is said 
to have replied, “My job is to put on nut number eighty- 
four.” What would be the net spiritual result of that 
occupation ? 

Is the industrial worker underpaid or overpaid? Which 
occupations are you thinking of? 

Is the workingman entitled to the same security that 
the professional worker has? Would it cripple his effi- 
ciency to take away his fear of losing his job? 

Is “paternalism” good or bad? Is it better for workers 
to have things done for them or to do things for them- 
selves, even if they cannot do them so well? 

Do outbreaks of violence, in mining communities, for 
example, indicate a low order of intelligence and morality, 
or te we all act about the same way in time of crisis or 
trial : 

Does the habitual performance of so-called menial tasks 
affect a person’s character? In what direction? Should 
any person be perpetually required to do such work? What 
alternative is there? 

Granting that labor unions create many problems for 
the employer and for the community, is the effort to sup- 
press them warranted? Is their total influence good or 
bad? Is Mr. Rowntree’s suggestion applicable to 
America? 


CHAPTER IV 
INDUSTRY AND THE COMMUNITY 
Nehemiah 4. 21 to 5. 7 


“Tr interest of the public is paramount.” Granted 
the truth of this principle, how much does it mean? How 
far should the community attempt to control industry 
and industrial relations? Does the public in general get 
what is coming to it from industry? How intelligent is 
the public about industrial issues which it has to take a 
hand in deciding? How far is the deplorable condition of 
municipal politics and government in America the result 
of industrial conditions which the community neglects? 


Tor Pusuic’s SHARE IN INDUSTRIAL CoNTROL 


A textile mill in New York State in which a scheme of 
joint management has been worked out has not only 
employees’ representatives on the board of directors but a 
representative of the community as well, for the purpose 
of safeguarding the public interest. The proposal is a 
novel one, but it seems so obviously reasonable and proper 
that it is strange it has not more often been adopted. The 
primary interest of the whole community in industry may 
be taken for granted. Is the community well served by 
industry at the present time? A fair-minded or optimis- 
tically inclined person is obliged to admit that with all 
its faults the industrial system gives the public more goods, 
more promptly delivered, and at lower cost than would 
have been conceivable before the era of machine produc- 
tion. No judgments that we may pass upon the “game” 
as it is now being played can blind us to the positive 
achievements of the modern industrial regime. But as in 
every other phase of human endeavor the ultimate judg- 
ment is based not merely upon what is, but upon what 
might be. It is no permanent justification of a monopoly 
that it has in the past lowered the cost of a commodity. 
The question is, Could it serve the community better 


39 


40 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


now than it does? So with the whole industrial system. 
Moreover, an industrial organization that can show such 
an astonishing record of material achievement must be 
held accountable for its spiritual consequences. 


INDUSTRY AND THE “GENERAL PuBLic” 


The community, using the term in the sense of society 
generally, has more than one relation to industry. It is 
consumer, investor, lawmaker, and, so to say, moral 
arbiter. In one sense, of course, a community in an indus- 
trial city is virtually identical with labor. It is often 
assumed on that account that an industrial community’s 
interests, as such, are identical with those of the working 
class. If one looks closely at the matter, however, it is 
seen that the community never reacts that way. The work- 
ing people as a whole never feel that they have a first- 
hand interest in a particular industrial question or con- 
troversy. Suppose, for example, that the clothing workers 
are having a conflict with their employers. It does not 
follow that the boot and shoe workers will sympathize with 
them; much less, actively support them. The clothing 
workers’ difficulty is of interest to the boot and shoe 
workers chiefly as it affects the price they pay for clothes. 
In other words, they are related to the question as con- 
sumers on precisely the same basis as the professional 
classes in the community. 

This fact is well known by labor leaders themselves. 
It is the thing that stands in the way of working-class 
solidarity. It is illustrated in the failure of the union- 
label movement to win support from the workers as a 
whole. A strenuous effort has been made to induce mem- 
bers of labor unions to observe the labels of other unions 
and buy, so far as possible, only union made goods. But 
it is very hard to get them to interest themselves as buyers 
in the label of another union than their own. Although 
many influences are at work tending to overcome this lack 
of solidarity among working people, the tendency of vari- 
ous groups to stand apart by themselves seems to be very 
firmly established in America. In other words, the greater 
solidarity of the workers as consumers and citizens than 


INDUSTRY AND THE COMMUNITY 41 


as labor unionists is a prominent characteristic of Ameri- 
can industrial life. It is as consumer that the community 
sustains the most conscious and the most elemental rela- 
tion to industry. And it is to be feared that the attitude 
growing out of this relationship is often far from con- 
Baran and far from what we could call a Christian 
ideal. 


Ts THern EnovaH to Go ArounpD? 


The first observation to be made concerning the way 
in which the community suffers on account of industrial 
situations is one that could not have been made until re- 
cently, namely, that industry is positively failing to pro- 
duce the goods needed for the life of the community as a 
whole. For a long time it was assumed that there is 
enough wealth produced every year, if it were only prop- 
erly distributed, to provide for the needs of all our peo- 
ple. Now, however, through the labors of the National 
Bureau of Economic Research, we may state with a good 
deal of confidence that there is no surplus, but that we run 
habitually with an economic deficit. This organization, 
which is a nonpartisan research body, about two years 
ago made a study of the national income which indicated 
that in the year 1919 it was approximately $66,000,000,- 
000. The report showed the distribution of income for 
the year 1918. It is estimated that in that year there were 
something over 29,000,000 persons who had incomes under 
$1,700 a year. Now, this is almost the exact figure ar- 
rived at by the National Industrial Conference Board—an 
employer’s research organization—as a living standard 
for a workingman’s family in the city of Detroit in 
September, 1921. On the face of the National Bureau’s 
income report, it would require $20,000,000 a year to 
bring all incomes under $1,700 up to that minimum. 
Even if all the incomes in the country over $2,500 were 
confiscated for this purpose, they would not be sufficient. 

The national income must not only maintain our peo- 
ple but must pay the expenses of government, support a 
multitude of philanthropies, and provide all the capital 
for the expansion of our industrial equipment and the 


42 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


development of natural resources. It would appear that 
in 1919 there was not sufficient to provide our 21,000,000 
or more families with an annual income of $2,000 a year 
each and meet all the necessary additional demands of 
the nation. The United States Chamber of Commerce esti- 
mates that the national income for 1922 was only $50,000,- 
000,000. These surprising figures do not mean that the 
distribution of wealth is not an important problem, but 
the question of distribution derives its importance more 
from moral considerations than from the direct material 
effect that a redistribution of income would have upon 
the economic status of masses of the people. On this 
showing it seems clear that the basic problem of industry 
from the community’s point of view is to produce more 
oods. 

; At the same time it must not be overlooked that the 
distribution of income is an important factor in supply- 
ing incentives to greater production. Income statistics 
indicate that wages do not keep pace with increasing 
productivity. This fact in itself is sufficient to account 
for lagging production. 


DiIsTRIBUTING THE BLAME 


Who is to blame for this failure of our industrial 
establishment? ‘The employers blame the workers. They 
point to limitation of output and to demands for high 
wages which make production unprofitable to the em- 
ployer. Everyone has heard the story of the successive 
reductions of a bricklayer’s daily work in spite of the rela- 
tively high wages that he receives. The workers, on the 
other hand, have an elaborate defense. Their work time 
is often interrupted. There are many days when they can- 
not work. They lose time in shifting from job to job. 
Their annual income is by no means equal to the amount 
arrived at by multiplying their daily wages by the num- 
ber of working days in the year. The problem of under- 
employment was brought to the public’s attention very 
forcibly during the great coal strike of 1922, when men 
whose wages were $7.50 a day had so little employment 
that they were in actual distress. 


INDUSTRY AND THE COMMUNITY 43 


The employer likewise comes in for criticism. The 
Federated Engineering Societies’? report on “Waste in 
Industry” puts forward the view that the larger measure 
of responsibility for eliminating the very extensive waste 
in industrial processes must be borne by management. 
And now comes William R. Bassett, the engineer, saying 
that if manufacturers would equip and organize their 
planis on a thoroughly efficient basis, even the unskilled 
een might have an income equivalent to $10,000 a 
year ! 


A Task FoR THE WHOLE ComMmuUNtItTy 


The conclusion seems clear enough that neither the em- 
ployer nor the worker is exerting himself to the limit to 
produce goods. Limitation of output is practiced on both 
sides. The workers have had in the past a disillusioning 
experience with piece-work rates, which have tended +o 
come down as their production went up. During the war 
they obeyed the injunction to increase production, and 
then they found their jobs gone or rendered uncertain 
because the market was glutted with goods which they had 
produced but which the employer could not sell. The em- 
ployer, on the other hand, is playing the only game that 
he knows. He makes goods with his eye on the market. 
If he cannot make a profit, he ceases to produce. We are 
all in the grip of a force which is commonly referred to 
as the business cycle, which experts of all kinds are 
struggling to master, and in accord with which we alter- 
nate between prosperity and depression. At this moment 
no one has the answer. But this much seems clear: the 
problem of production will never be solved so long as 
employers and workers confine their attention to their 
own immediate group interest in the production process. 
To be sure, the problem must be worked out by people 
of experience and scientific training, but the moral re- 
quirements of the situation must be determined by us 
all. 

But even where production is quite adequate we often 
fail to connect demand with supply, so that goods which 
many people would gladly consume are left to perish at 


44 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


the place where they are produced. So much of the price 
of goods represents nonproductive processes, so many 
middlemen have to be paid, with the consumer footing all 
the bills, that it is little wonder the public manifests 
extreme irritation with both parties in industry. 


Tur Crepitr PROBLEM 


Perhaps equally disturbing from the community’s point 
of view is the working of the modern system of finance 
and credit. Credit has become more and more vital to 
industrial enterprise, yet it continues to be a rival 
enterprise in the sense that the financing of socially use- 
ful and necessary undertakings is controlled by a system 
which is itself a profit-making business. The financial 
organization of the country has become highly centralized 
and has in the main identified itself with the most con- 
servative industrial interests. To the labor mind “Wall 
Street” is synonymous with all that is oppressive. This 
attitude is a fact of first importance, no matter what one 
may think of its justification or falsity. The question is 
being asked to-day if it is not possible to organize finance 
on a basis of public service rather than a basis of profit. 
But this is really a subject for a separate study. 


Tuer Pusuic’s IGNORANCE 


One of the worst features of the community’s relation 
to this whole matter is the inconclusive character of public 
criticism. Now the employer, now the worker, falls under 
the ban of public disapproval. But the public mind sel- 
dom gets far enough into the problem to suggest a way 
out. In the case of strikes and lockouts, for example, 
public sympathy for one side or the other is often mani- 
fest, but the placing of that sympathy seems to have little 
relation to the moral issues of the contest. In the great 
coal strike of 1922, there was widespread sympathy (if 
one may judge from the public press) with the workers, 
while in the railway shopmen’s strike which followed, the 
sympathy was almost entirely on the other side. There 
was, to be sure, on the face of the facts a difference in the 
moral status of the two groups, yet hardly enough to ac- 


a ale — 


INDUSTRY AND THE COMMUNITY 45 


count for the great difference in the public attitude. The 
explanation seems more probable that while there was a 
big coal surplus which lessened the public’s grievance in 
the coal strike, the public had an immediate stake of most 
vital importance in the railroad strike. 

It is surely among the worst of the injuries suffered by 
the community due to the industrial situation that it is 
woefully uninformed concerning the facts. This applies 
as much to the country as a whole as to single localities. 
Is it not strange that we should have had to wait until 
two years ago for dependable figures concerning our na- 
_ tional income? How is it that a question of such funda- 
mental importance as the valuation of our railways should 
require years of expert study at public expense? Partisan 
publicity plays a large part in determining economic and 
industrial issues. Even the effects of a government re- 
port, prepared with manifest care and impartiality, may 
be shattered in the public mind by the guns of well-paid 
and expertly handled publicity. 


WHERE THE Press Fats 


The press helps the situation all too little. Newspapers 
make a show of running their news columns independently 
of their editorial opinions, but during local industrial 
controversies most of the news matter seems to go through 
the editorial mill before it finds its way to the printed 
page. And it is well known that the accounts of indus- 
trial happenings and the interpretation given them are 
commonly colored from the employers’ point of view. This 
is usually not because newspapers are in a conspiracy with 
the employers to defeat labor, although this is certainly 
sometimes true. It seems more to the point to recognize 
that newspapers themselves are business enterprises con- 
trolled by business men, who have a business point of 
view, are members of a business community, and are gov- 
erned by business traditions. The newspaper owner is 
sympathetic with the employer in a labor strike usually 
for the same reason that any other business man in the 
community takes the same attitude. But how grave the 
situation is when the public, whose opinion should de- 


46 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


termine and, in the long run, frequently does determine 
industrial controversies, is compelled to make up its mind 
as to the issues presented on the basis of partisan state- 
ments! The fact that some of our greatest newspapers 
have gone far toward remedying this defect does not 
lessen the validity of the general criticism. 

The growth of the labor press is a protest against the 
situation we have been considering; but, so far as the 
public in general is concerned, the labor press has only 
complicated the situation. For if the public press, com- 
monly referred to in the labor papers as the “capitalist 
press,” is partisan on one side, the labor press is certainly 
partisan to the same or to a greater extent on the other. 
The labor press, generally speaking, has a constituency 
of its own, which pays for a certain interpretation of 
industrial events and gets what it pays for. It should not 
be overlooked, however, that there are notable exceptions. 
As for the trade papers, which represent manufacturing 
interests, it is difficult to see how they could be more 
partisan than they are. 


INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS AND PontiticaAL DEMocRACY 


Quite apart from all consideration of industrial struggle 
or of the price which the consumer pays for the goods he 
buys, the community has a large stake in industry from a 
social point of view. Who are the workers in our Ameri- 
can factories, mines, and quarries? The ranks of the un- 
skilled are filled largely with foreign-speaking immigrant 
labor—the “hunkies” of the steel mills and the “wops” 
of. the textile mills. They come to us in hordes and we 
settle them in hordes. We allow them to colonize in con- 
gested quarters of our cities in an environment as differ- 
ent as possible from that to which they were accustomed in 
their original peasant home in Europe. Thus we have our 
little Italys and little Bohemias and little Russias, and 
they remain alien to our life and often alien to our thought. 
When a community undertakes in commendable fashion 
to “Americanize” its foreign populations—that is to say, 
when it undertakes to socialize itself and to end the isola- 
tion of these little communities of workers—it encounters 


INDUSTRY AND THE COMMUNITY 47 


almost insuperable difficulties. The difference in ideals 
is grounded in different standards which are definitely 
registered in the pay envelope. The economic levels in 
the American working community are basic to our indus- 
trial organization. How can we isolate groups of our 
workers economically and then break down that isolation 
socially? How can we segregate groups of workers eco- 
nomically and assimilate them morally and religiously ? 

The community’s problems of government, education, 
sanitation, and recreation are immeasurably increased and 
complicated by the presence of these isolated communi- 
ties of workers whose existence is fundamental to our pres- 
ent industrial organization. Our municipal politics in 
America, notorious the world over, continually remind us 
of the fact that the masses of our city populations serve as 
material for political exploitation. Civic consciousness 
and civic virtue cannot rise far beyond the cultural level 
of these masses. 


Leanine Upon THE IMMIGRANT 


The problem of American immigration, in the last 
analysis, is a problem of industry. Industry determines, 
probably more than any other influence, how many for- 
eigners shall come to our shores. When the controversy 
over the twelve-hour day in the steel industry became 
acute in the summer of 1923, we were told that the long 
shift must continue unless more immigrant labor should 
be imported into the country, and it might have been 
added, labor that will work under arduous conditions that 
native-born Americans are inclined to refuse. Industry 
determines finally the level of life of all these foreign 
populations. In large measure industry determines also 
the public policies and the civic activities upon which the 
improvement of these populations depends. 


INDUSTRY AND THE STATE 


The state, which is the whole community in its political 
capacity, to-day carries the industrial problem as a heavy 
burden and a perplexing responsibility. How far should 
it intervene in settling industrial disputes and in determin- 


48 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


ing wages, prices, and profits? Is the highest ideal to be 
attained through legislative action and court control, or 
through voluntary cooperation within industry? <A con- 
test is waged each year in a number of States over mini- 
mum-wage and maximum-hour laws for women workers. 
These laws have been championed by labor, by social 
workers, and by eminent employing concerns, but they 
have made little headway. Proposals for unemployment 
or health insurance under State auspices are even less 
well received by the business community. Yet these meas- 
ures have very much to recommend them, and from the 
Christian point of view the burden of proof should rest on 
the opposition. It seems not unlikely that these measures 
will come into existence through State action, as work- 
ingmen’s compensation for accidents has come, unless 
industry shortly meets the situation on its own initiative. 
But all such measures win their way slowly. American 
opinion in general is against governmental interference 
in the affairs of corporations. 

But there is a tendency to deal differently with the prob- 


lem of industrial conflict. It rests on this simple reason- — 


ing: “Industry is a part of the community. The welfare 
of the general public is paramount, and must take pre- 
cedence over the desires and purposes of a minority. 
Therefore, the state must assert itself when the parties to 
industry cannot agree and must maintain production or 
service uninterrupted.” But it is becoming increasingly 
evident that when the whole public asserts itself in an 
emergency it does so on the basis of expediency and its 
own convenience more often than on the basis of justice. 
Furthermore, it is coming to be felt that decisions that 
are enforced and plans that are imposed upon groups of 
human beings are less effective and less salutary than 
those reached by cooperative effort and in good will. What 
hope there is of attaining a Christian ideal by such means 
we must inquire further. 


For tHe Discussion Group 


With reference to any particular industrial dispute 
how would the members of this group line up—with the 


Se 


INDUSTRY AND THE COMMUNITY 49 


employers, with the workers, or with the general public? 
What is the ground of our sympathies in such cases? 

Is the common statement, “The interest of the public 
is paramount,” fair to industry itself? Does the public 
always recognize its own ultimate interest? Is the public 
attitude usually just? On what basis did we make up our 
minds about the issues of the last coal strike? 

A certain clothing manufacturer puts the moral respon- 
sibilities of industrial management in this order: first, 
to the consumer ; secondly, to the worker; thirdly, to the 
investor. Is that the right order? 

Whose is the primary responsibility for increased pro- 
duction? Would a fairer distribution of wealth indirectly 
increase production by giving labor a new incentive? 

Would it increase production to insure labor against 
the privations of unemployment? Should the community 
bear part of the employer’s risk of loss? How could 
this be done ? 

If the newspapers were always scrupulously accurate 
and fair in reporting industrial disputes, would the aver- 
age person take the trouble to inform himself? Could a 
newspaper devoted primarily to supplying correct informa- 
tion about such issues pay expenses ? 

What can be done for foreign workers who live in con- 
gested quarters? Does the location of industries in cities 
compel the workers to live in congested neighborhoods, or 
are the industries compelled to locate where the workers 
insist on living? 

Who gets closest to the industrial worker—the min- 
ister or the crooked politician? Why? 

Do we discriminate, in buying goods, between those 
made under good working conditions and those not so 
produced? Are we willing to pay the price of good wages 
and sanitary working conditions? 


CHAPTER V 


COMPETITION FOR WAGES AND PROFITS— 
THE OLD GAME 


Luke 12. 13-23 


Is competition between labor and capital inevitable or 
is there a possibility of actual partnership? Are business 
and industry governed by mechanical principles—the law 
of supply and demand, for example—and if so, how much 
place is allowed to ethics in the business world? Do 
natural forces determine with efficiency and fairness what 
station a man should occupy and what portion of goods 
he should have? Has Christianity played any important 
part in building up our industrial regime or has it been 
steadily pushed aside by the encroachments of material 
forces ? 


THE “PARTNERSHIP” oF CAPITAL AND LABOR 


One of the writers of this series of lessons published 
an article on the aims of the labor movement in which he 
described it against a background of industrial struggle. 
The secretary of an employers’ association remonstrated 
with him for emphasizing the element of conflict. “This 
is the idea,” he said, “that we are especially anxious to 
avoid. We want the workers to understand that their 
interests and those of their employers are identical.” This 
is a note which is very commonly struck in industrial 
literature of the present day. ‘“Partnership”—that is the 
word which is most commonly taken to indicate the ideal 
industrial relationship. To what extent is this a correct 
account of the relation between employer and employee? 

The brief survey that we have been making certainly 
does not indicate on the face of it that the interests of 
employers and workers are identical or even harmonious. 
More than that, the interests of employers and workers, as 


50 


COMPETITION—THE OLD GAME 51 


such, often seem to be quite out of harmony with those of 
the community. With strikes going on continually, with 
the air filled with propaganda and counterpropaganda 
seeking to convince the public that each of the great 
parties to industry is right in its contentions and ought to 
have public support as against the other, is it not idle 
to say that the interests of employers and workers are 
identical? Indeed, might one not say that their interests 
are identical only in the ironical sense that they are both 
striving to get the same thing? 

This view of the matter is, of course, not to be confused 
with the slogan of the I. W. W.: “The working class and 
the employing class have nothing in common.” That 
slogan means that in the very nature of the case the two 
groups must continue to be antagonistic. One does not 
subscribe to such pessimism merely by recognizing the 
present facts. Perhaps one might say that a Christian 
faith with respect to industry is the confidence that em- 
ployers and workers may become partners, although they 
are clearly not partners now. 


Workina Crass “PsycHoioay” 


Royal Meeker, head of the Pennsylvania State De- 
partment of Labor, once said that the common talk about 
working-class psychology was quite misleading. The fact 
is, he said, that the psychology of the workers and of the 
employers is precisely the same, and that is-what makes 
all the difficulty! In other words, the most conspicuous 
thing about industry to-day is the fact that a struggle is 
going on over a division of the product. It is perfectly 
patent, when one stops to think of it, that through co- 
operation the product of industry might be greatly in- 
creased and then the share of each group would be en- 
larged. But there are too much uncertainty and fear in 
the situation to permit such cooperation at the present 
time. The workers want some assurance that they are 
going to share in what they consider an equitable way 
in the division of the product before they exert themselves 
to increase it. The employer wants some assurance that 
too much of the increased product is not going to be taken 


d2 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


away from him. And both want to be assured that they 
are not going to be victims of a caprice of the market 
which every now and then brings about an industrial 
collapse. 


How tHE Propuct or Inpustry Is Dtvipep 


Now, in an ordinary business the division of the product 
may be easily analyzed. Strictly speaking, the product of 
any business enterprise is divided into four parts: wages 
of labor, interest on capital, rent on land, and profits— 
that is, all that is left. In other words, the employer in 
the original sense of that term goes into the money market 
and gets his capital and pays for it the going rate of 
interest—let us say, five per cent on common stock and 
seven per cent on preferred stock. He goes into the so- 
called “Jabor market” and hires his labor for a stated 
wage. He pays a stated rent for his land, unless he buys 
it with the capital of the business. Then all that he makes 
over and above those fixed charges is his own share and is 
termed “profits.” Ordinarily we do not distinguish be- 
tween that part of a dividend which is strictly interest on 
capital invested and that part which is over and above the 
going rate of interest and which represents clear “velvet.” 
There is no provision in the rules of the game as it is being 
played to-day for the settlement of fine moral questions 
like this. It is when such questions are raised that we 
hear the common slogan “Business is business.” We are 
still under the spell of the economics formulated by Adam 
Smith, which put so much stress upon the workings of 
natural law. The division of the product of industry pro- 
ceeds in accord with what are considered inexorable 
processes. | 


Tur Eruics or Business 


Business and industry are, of course, not without their 
ethical code; there are practices that are taboo, and there 
are others that are “questionable” which all high-class 
concerns avoid. But the most fundamental issues in in- 
dustry are settled by formulas that have little relation to 
ethics. For example, let us suppose that the price of an 


COMPETITION—THE OLD GAME 53 


important commodity suddenly goes up. There may be a 
good deal of talk about profiteering, but the business com- 
munity in general asks only if the rise is proportional 
to the increase of demand over supply. The question of 
amount of profit is wholly secondary. Or suppose that 
wages have dropped to an abnormally low figure. The 
matter is dismissed as the natural result of a demand for 
labor that is low relatively to the supply. To ask less than 
the market price, or to pay more than the going wage, is 
considered a weird sort of philanthropy. 

This whole arrangement which we accept as a matter of 
course seems a bit strange to one who has never acquired a 
business mind. A little girl of eight sat with her father 
in an “automat” lunch and, as she ate her sandwich, mar- 
veled at the number of nickels that poured through the 
slots of the machines. “I suppose,” she said between 
bites, with a nod of her head toward the white figures 
pushing trays of dishes through the crowd, “I suppose 
they make a hundred dollars every day.” She was as- 
sured that the nickels did not go to the employees, but 
that they only got their wages. The owner got the 
nickels. “Where is he?” she demanded and, on being told 
that he did not come to the place himself, she asked in 
amazement: “You mean that these people do the work 
and he stays home and counts his money? Why, daddy, 
that isn’t right!” Her father did not follow her alto- 
gether in her primitive economics, but he coveted the 
ability of her unsophisticated little mind to arrive quickly 
at a moral judgment. “Out of the mouths of babes!” 


Tne Law or Suppty AND DEMAND 


An odd situation exists in industry to-day. Although 
the competitive struggle goes on over the division of the 
product, the orthodox view among employers is that such 
competition is essentially impossible. The prevailing 
economic doctrine on this point is that wages and prices 
are fixed by the “law of supply and demand” and that any 
arbitrary increase in wages is automatically passed on to 
the consumer. An actual reapportioning of the shares of 
capital and labor is not considered because the proportion 


54 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


is assumed to be fixed by market conditions. The em- 
ployer who distinguished his duty as a man from his duty 
as an employer was working on the prevailing theory that 
the division of the product of industry proceeds in accord 
with a mechanical principle. An English writer, 
R. H. Tawney, who is a churchman as well as an economist, 
has discussed this problem in a book suggestively called 
The Sickness of an Acquisitive Society.1 He says of this 
conception of industry, “It produces industrial war, be- 
cause its teaching is that each individual or group has a 
right to what they can get, and denies that there is any 
principle other than the mechanism of the market, which 
determines what they ought to get.” That is it—“mechan- 
ism of the market.” Business men and industrial leaders 
to-day are economic determinists in that they defer ulti- 
mately to mechanical laws instead of to spiritual princi- 
ples. Now, of course, if they could prove that the mechani- 
cal laws actually do operate to the exclusion of spiritual 
principles, they would be right. That is to-say, we should 
then have to agree that it is not a spiritual world we are 
living in but a mechanistic world. But the mechanical 
principles which are so stoutly defended keep the indus- 
trial world virtually an armed camp. The reason for this 
lies in the fact that they do not account adequately for 
all the elements of human nature. 


Kerepinc Prope In Tuerr Piacs 


Of course, if all parties to industry would accept this 
mechanical interpretation of the matter, the industrial 
struggle might come to an end. But would that make 
things any better? One way to settle the slavery issue 
would have been to convince everyone that the slave had 
found his proper place, that he was a hewer of wood and 
a drawer of water because he was meant to be such. This 
doctrine was freely preached before the Civil War, and 
one frequently hears similar talk now. A woman who 
takes herself very seriously said to a companion in a 
fashionable New York club: “I think this universal edu- 


1Page 40. The American title is An Acguisitive Society. 


COMPETITION—THE OLD GAME 55 


cation for the common people is a great mistake. It gets 
them quite dissatisfied with their state in life and unfits 
them for their proper work.” Undoubtedly there are many 
people who still believe that the division of society into 
economic classes is ordained of God and that these very 
mechanical principles of which we have been speaking are 
the divinely appointed means of keeping things as they 
are. The orthodox Calvinist who had no difficulty in ac- 
cepting the principle of predestination that required him 
to be “willimg to be damned for the glory of God” certainly 
could have no difficulty as a capitalist and employer with 
the operation of a similar principle which determines 
every one’s status and keeps him there. But would this 
be a Christian solution? 


How THE Law or SUPPLY AND DEMAND Works 


But even if one has no moral difficulty with this situa- 
tion, the practical trouble with it is that this much re- 
vered law of supply and demand seems to break down. 
A few hundred years ago the workers made up their 
minds that they would not accept the rule of the market, 
that they would not accept for themselves the status of a 
~ commodity, that they would increase by their own organ- 
ized efforts the earnings which the law of supply and 
demand had assigned them. It is one of the common com- 
plaints of employers against labor unions that they inter- 
fere with the normal working of the labor market. Never- 
theless, the labor unions have gone on and increased in 
strength. If they are here to stay—and there seems to 
be no doubt about it—we must accept this interference 
with the working of the law of supply and demand in 
the matter of wages as a continuing factor in the indus- 
trial situation until a spiritual solution of the industrial 
problem is found. In other words, trade unionism has 
put the workers into definite competition with employers 
and capitalists. When they ask for more wages, if the 
amount demanded can be added to the selling price, the 
employer is not concerned. But if the increase in wages 
must in some measure be taken out of profits or out of 
surplus, then the increased prosperity of labor can come 


\ 


56 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


about only at the expense of the prosperity of the employer 
and the investors in the industry. Such demands are 
opposed by the employer with every force at his command. 
He considers them not only hostile to his interests but 
subversive of the fundamentals of economics. 


Laxsor’s “Cost or Propuctrron” 


The basic difficulty here seems to be that an economic 
fact has been overlooked. All economists recognize that 
there are limits to the working of the law of supply and 
demand with reference to the prices of material goods. 
For instance, if the price of a commodity goes so low that 
it does not meet the “cost of production,” the production 
stops. It is by changes in the volume of production that 
price changes are controlled—except where a monopoly 
exists. Now, if we think of labor as a commodity, and of 
wages as the price of it, what is the “cost of production” 
below which the “price” cannot go? Business men who 
have cost-accounting systems commonly leave out of the 
reckoning the true cost of labor. What they mean by labor 
cost is what they have to pay labor. What they overlook 
is that true labor cost is what it takes to keep labor healthy, 
efficient, and of wholesome mind. The law of supply and 
demand breaks down when used to justify low wages, 
just as it would with steel ingots, should one seek to apply 


it below the level of the cost of production. If labor | 


is to be considered a commodity, then labor insists on 
having a price that will cover its cost. One is reminded 
of the argument over the possibility of curving a base- 
ball. No matter how clearly mathematicians “proved” 
that a ball cannot be pitched on a curved line, the pitchers 
actually did it. They had hold of a physical principle 
that the scholars had forgotten. So in industry. No 
matter how much competition between wages and divi- 
dends is denied and pronounced fictitious, it goes on. 
Employers may assert that “artificial” interference with 
wage levels is contrary to economic laws, but the unions 
have continued to interfere and have obviously sueceeded 
in influencing the ratio of wages to profits, 


COMPETITION—THE OLD GAME 5? 


Wuo WINS IN THE CoMPETITIVE GAME? 


So the competitive struggle in our industrial establish- 
ment continues. It is a very old game and a costly one. 
It goes on continually like the conflict between hostile 
nations, There may be protracted armed truces, but the 
war persists. The disturbing thing about all this is that 
the game we are playing, in its very nature, makes an 
escape from this situation impossible. It is a game thai 
is never won and cannot be won by either side. Its goals 
are perpetually being shoved farther along. The ascend- 
ancy now of one side and now of the other is but a signal 
for the renewal of the struggle, an intensification of the 
competition, and a deepening of bitterness. To be sure, 
the opening stanza of Berton Braley’s poem “Business Is 
Business”! depicts something cruder than we commonly 
find in the business world: 


“Business is Business,” the Little Man said, 
“A battle where ‘everything goes,’ 
Where the only gospel is ‘get ahead,’ 
And never spare friends or foes. 
Slay or be slain’ is the slogan cold; 
You must struggle and slash and tear, 
For Business is Business, a fight for gold, 
Where all that you do is fair!” 


The process has been softened a good deal under the influ- 
ence of Christian ideals. Yet this stanza much more 
closely approximates a description of modern business 
than the one that follows it: 


“Business is Business,’ the Big Man said, 
“A battle to make of earth 

A place to yield us more wine and bread, 
More pleasure and joy and mirth; 

There are still some bandits and buccaneers 
Who are jungle-bred beasts of trade, 

But their number dwindles with passing years, 
And dead is the code they made!”’ 


The code they made seems to be far from dead. So long 
as attention is centered in both camps on the material 
rewards of industrial effort, so long as both employers and 
1Used by permission of The Nation’s Business. 
+ 


58 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


workers are actuated by fear of each other and of the un- 
predictable workings of the market, there is no escape 
from the crudities of the struggle. We may dignify work 
all we like and idealize industry as much as we please, but 
human beings who live in the hunger zone or just beyond 
the edge of it are not likely to climb much above the 
plane of animal self-defense. Yet if Christian faith has 
any sure foundation, the time is coming when it may be 
said truly of this competitive regime, “Dead is the code 
they made.” | 


Men anp THINGS 


Here, then, is the stern fact. Employers and business 
men are committed for the most part to reliance upon 
the workings of the law of supply and demand. To a 
very considerable degree that law actually operates in 
industry. But it operates to produce discontent and re- 
bellion. It is a mechanical principle evolved with refer- 
ence to things. It will never work, undisputed, with 
reference to men. Labor has discovered that by use of 
its own economic power it can interfere with the operation 
of the law of supply and demand. By organizing, labor 
ean defy the dictates of the “labor market” precisely as 
employers by combining can force their prices away be- 
yond the normal level fixed by the operation of this law. 
It is a commonplace of economics that the law of supply 
and demand does not work for monopolies. Employers 
have learned how to, limit its operation in their own inter- 
est and workers have learned likewise. The mechanical 
principles have been challenged on both sides when the 
interest of either group has called for it. Hereafter 
neither group can invoke them with impunity merely to 
gain an advantage over the other. The actual visible 
rewards of industry are at present limited and the con- 
test is over their distribution. The old competitive game 
is a harsh one, but is there any other game to play? 
Christianity holds that there is. 


For tHE Discusston Group 
Do you agree with the statement that the difficulty in 


COMPETITION—THE OLD GAME 59 


industrial relations is less a matter of misunderstanding 
than of a very clear understanding of conflicting interests ? 

What are the interests of capital and labor which so 
oiten pit them against each other? Do increased wages 
necessarily mean less profits, or higher prices to the con- 
sumer? Can the interests of all three parties be advanced 
at the same time? How? 

Do the employers whom you know generally accept 
“supply and demand” as the principle of wage determina- 
tion? How far would the average employer go in cutting 
wages when the “labor market” is strongly favorable to 
him ? 

What do the words “right” and “just”? mean when ap- 
plied to wages? Are they ethical or only mathematical 
terms ? 

Are there fixed levels of intelligence which qualify peo- 
ple for stated kinds of work? If so, who or what is to 
determine where people “belong” ? 

Is industry as much interested in the “upkeep” of its 
labor as in that of its plant and equipment? If an em- 
ployer can figure his material “costs,” why is there no 
agreement about what it costs to maintain labor in physical 
and mental efficiency ? : 

Are disputes over wages and hours usually settled or 
only patched up? Some people insist that they cannot 
be settled on a continuing competitive basis. What do 
you think? 

Is there something wrong with the competitive game 
itself, or only with the way it is played? 


CHAPTER VI 


STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS—INTERRUPTIONS 
OF THE GAME 


1 Corinthians 12. 14-27 


Are strikes and lockouts ever justifiable? Whether 
justifiable or not, are they inevitable? What right has a 
man to his job? Is the remedy for strikes to be found 
in compulsory arbitration or in some less drastic means? 
Must there always be an ultimate appeal to force in the 
preservation of human rights and institutions? If so, 
what becomes of the Christian ideal? 


Tur DIAGNOSIS 


Many of the bodily pains and annoyances that human 
beings suffer are of interest to the doctors chiefly for 
the light they throw on conditions of greater importance. 
Most of us are blissfully unaware of our disorders until 
some purely superficial sign develops.. Then, but for the 
counsel of a wise physician, we should probably become 
preoccupied with the symptom and neglect the real 
trouble. Is there any significance in this for the present- 
day industrial situation? Certainly we are caught un- 
prepared for most of the conflicts that break out. Take 
the great coal strike of 1922 for example. The roots of 
that trouble were deep and it had been growing for years. 
It was the whole industry that was out of gear, not just 
the mechanism of bargaining. Yet it took months of 
educational work and publicity to convince the public 
that the trouble was not just a matter to be adjusted 
by arbitration over wages. This time the public became 
sufficiently aroused to warrant Congress in setting up 
new machinery at considerable expense to find the facts 
and devise remedies for what was wrong. As a general 
rule, however, it is hardly too much to say that se long 


60 


STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS 61 


as the wheels keep turning, the public is indifferent to 
industrial questions. Apparently the work of the Coal 
Commission was all but forgotten by the country at large 
when the anthracite crisis of 1923 brought the matter 
once again into the foreground. The public is preoccupied 
with its own affairs—that is, with what it recognizes as 
its own affairs—and it requires a very considerable dis- 
turbance to direct its attention to the problems of any one 
group of people. 


SyMPTOMS AND CAUSES 


It is precisely because of our neglect of industrial affairs 
that the outbreaks of trouble and violence are of so great 
importance. Like the symptoms of approaching bodily 
disaster which the doctors value, strikes and lockouts 
are like big signal boards on the industrial highway. The 
quack doctor attempts only to treat the symptoms and 
Jets the causes take care of themselves. There is a story 
of a new fireman in a powder factory who was told to 
keep his eye on the thermometer because if it went beyond 
a certain point he would “hear a noise around here.” His 
foreman came just in time to see him dousing the thermo- 
meter with cold water. Is it possible that the often heard 
proposal to prohibit strikes by law would be merely ap- 
plying cold water to the industrial thermometer ? 

But since, on the one hand, labor makes much of the 
“right to strike,” and, on the other hand, the strike itself 
is considered by many people to be one of the chief evils 
of the present situation, it ought to be carefully examined. 
And in no other way can one get a better understanding 
of the problems of industrial relations. On the face of 
it the strike is a drastic weapon and quite contrary to the 
Christian ideal. Yet the matter cannot be disposed of so 
easily. 

“SENIORITY” 


At the height of the railroad shopmen’s strike in 1922 
one of the present writers undertook to interpret the 
seniority issue in a statement which came to the attention 
of many persons of very decided views on the labor ques- 


62 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


tion. Seniority means the preference in lay-off and re- 
hiring, pensions and other privileges, that is accorded on 
the basis of length of service. The statement pointed out 
that this set of privileges is so important a factor in th> 
worker’s status that if 1t were surrendered by the striking 
shopmen, not only would their strike be lost but their 
union would be virtually destroyed. In other words, if 
men could not strike without losing all claim to their 
jobs and having to go back as individuals—if an employee 
of twenty years’ service had to accept a status inferior 
to that of a strike breaker who two months before was not 
even in the craft—then all that the union means in the 
shape of economic protection would be taken away. 


Tuer TITLE To A JOB 


This statement drew criticism. One university pro- 
fessor said that it was unsound from a moral point of 
view—it suggested that a man might quit his job and 
still lay claim to it, that he might retain his right to a 
job although refusing to work at it. On what ethical 
ground could such a position be maintained? At first 
sight the argument seems conclusive. We are all in- 
clined to apply to such a situation the moral of the “dog- 
in-the-manger” story. And besides, the suggestion that 
a@ man’s job can be anything other than a matter of con- 
tractual relationship between him as an individual and 
his employer cuts across a very strong legal tradition. 
The earlier history of the labor movement abounds in 
examples of court decisions holding illegal any collec- 
tive attempt to interfere with that relationship. But this 
is precisely the point at issue with reference to the strike. 
The labor union is a modern social phenomenon, and the 
strike likewise. However we may be disposed to regard it, 
is it not plain that in the collective refusal of workmen to 
work save under certain conditions we have a new kind of 
situation, one not contemplated in our older legal canons 
and not quite accounted for in our accepted moral codes? 

At its best, leaving out cases of violation of law or con- 
tract, the strike is precisely the thing that the professor 
pronounced morally impossible—quitting a job and still 


STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS 63 


laying claim to it. It is the insistence that the workman 
has a moral claim to his job, just as the employer has to 
his factory, and that he has the same right to refuse tem- 
porarily to work because of conditions which he believes 
to be wrong that the employer has to lock his factory 
temporarily if unwilling to accept the workers’ terms. 
The workers consider their jobs as their property and they 
have no difficulty in justifying the use of ageressive tactics 
in defending them. 


RESORTING TO VIOLENCE 


It must be admitted that the violent acts of strikers 
make a cumulative indictment whose seriousness the re- 
sponsible leaders of labor fully recognize. Probably the 
most bitter attacks of employers, and even of those paid 
publicity representatives of employers’ associations who 
sometimes have too little conscience about the tales which 
they disseminate, have a rather definite basis in fact, how- 
ever exaggerated they may be when considered quantita- 
tively. Yet all such deeds are strictly comparable to what 
the average man does when his back is against the wall in 
the defense of the thing most precious to him. Probably 
a conviction could seldom be had in the case of a man who 
used violence upon another who entered in hostile fashion 
his place of business, regardless of what a truly Christian 
judgment of his act might be. What is the counterpart of 
this property right in the life of the workman? There 
is but one answer—his job. And the worker displays to- 
ward that job, which he considers his property, the same 
fierce jealousy that characterizes the property-owner’s atti- 
tude toward his possessions. Who touches a man’s job: 
touches his life. 

Horrible and unjustifiable as was the Herrin massacre,. 
its explanation is doubtless to be found in this funda- 
mental attitude of workingmen. They go mad and act 
like brutes over the right to a job. A union town imparts 
to its children a bitterness toward the nonunion worker 
—the “scab,” the Philistine—that is comparable to the 
hereditary bitterness toward Germany that Alsatians im- 
bibed with their mothers’ milk. It is reported that in a 


64 QOHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


West Virginia town the school children recently refused 
to attend the school because the school building was being 
heated with coal from a mine that was worked by non- 
union men. The pupils went on strike. 


WHAT THE LIBERAL EMPLOYER THINKS 


It would be quite untrue to say that employers in gen- 
eral deny the claim of the workers to a “vested interest” 
in their jobs. They probably would for the most part 
reject i® stated in this way, but nevertheless many em- 
ployers are coming to feel that service rendered to the 
industry is something like capital invested in it and consti- 
tutes a definite claim on the part of the worker. The 
president of one of the great roads involved in the strike 
to which we have just referred took the men’s view of 
this matter and refused to join his fellow executives in 
insisting that the men give up their seniority rights. But 
even employers who are inclined to take a liberal view of 
the matter are usually very easily convinced that the 
worker’s claim has been invalidated by disloyal conduct. 


Tre IDEALISM OF A STRIKE 


Perhaps it involves some stretch of the imagination on 
the part of a person who looks at labor troubles from a 
distance to find anything idealistic in a strike. But a care- 
ful observer will find in a great labor struggle a loyalty 
and sacrifice that are akin to patriotism or even to reli- 
gious devotion. Again and again men have sacrificed 
their jobs, have’ suffered eviction from their homes and 
ostracism from their associates, because of a conviction 
that a moral principle was involved in their strike. Women 
and children have joined in the struggle as they would 
participate in a religious crusade. And in the fires thus 
kindled the leaders of labor are forged. If they are 
belligerent and noncooperative, probably this background 
of struggle is responsible. Even though the evil of a 
strike may be admitted, labor regards the effort to suppress 
it by law as a forcible disarming of one combatant while 
the other is left in possession of his weapons. No one 
can deal with the labor strike who does not see in it a 


STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS 65 


large measure of idealism and righteous purpose, how- 
ever he may appraise it in a particular situation. 


ComPpuLsory ARBITRATION 


The proposal that strikes be prohibited by law and arbi- 
tration made compulsory is rigidly opposed by labor. 
Without the strike as a potential resort labor feels that 
it would be utterly inferior in bargaining power to the 
employing and financial interests which have undisputed 
physical control of the plant. It interprets compulsory 
arbitration to mean compulsory labor. An attempt has 
been made in Kansas to outlaw strikes, with a degree of 
success which remains a matter of dispute. But it has 
served to bring out sharply the opposition to the principle 
of arbitrary control. Industrial war is closely analogous 
to international war. The establishment of courts of both 
industrial and international justice having compulsory 
jurisdiction may probably be regarded as an ultimate cer- 
tainty, but such tribunals presuppose an impartial code 
of law such as does not exist to-day. Of course the parallel ~ 
between a labor strike and armed conflict between nations 
is far from complete. Quantitatively the evils are not to 
be compared. Yet there are inherent in the strike all 
the terrors of a hunger blockade. At the same time labor 
prefers to accept the responsibility for using reason and 
moderation in the exercise of this grave alternative rather 
than to submit to the decision of a public which in a crisis 
usually thinks first of its own convenience and last of the 
justice of labor’s claims. If the strike is a hard thing for 
the public to understand, the public’s attitude toward a 
strike is an equally hard thing for labor to understand. 
Labor is told continually that the public’s interest is pri- 
mary and that the public’s will must be done. But labor 
feels that the public interest is sometimes best served by 
temporarily disturbing the public’s convenience. 


LABOR AND THE CouRTS 


One of the most regrettable facts in the industrial 
situation is labor’s distrustful attitude toward the courts. 
Were that attitude different, the “right to strike” would 


66 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


doubtless be less tightly grasped. Often it is based on a 
prejudice that one might call blind were it not so char- 
acteristically human. But there is a considerable ground 
for it which cannot be ignored. Take, for example, the 
decision handed down in the spring of 1923 by the United 
States Supreme Court on the Minimum Wage Commis- 
sion Law in the District of Columbia. One need only 
turn to Mr. Chief Justice Taft’s vigorous dissenting opin- 
ion to understand labor’s grievance against the courts. 
Mr. Taft said, in effect, that the court departed from its 
proper function by arguing economics instead of confining 
itself to the law and the Constitution. But for his judi- 
cial temperament and capacity he might have said much 
more. 

. The basic necessity in Christianizing industrial rela- 
tions would seem to be the establishment of mutual con- 
fidence and respect, and dependence upon justice rather 
than force. Jesus made much of this principle. But 
how can either side be sure that the legislative or judicial 
body to which final appeal must be made is going to be 
governed by a disinterested desire to do justly? Injunc- 
tions have been issued again and again when the deciding 
factor has not been the law or the constitution but popular 
clamor, or even the play of some strong special interest. 


Force AS THE Last REsortT 


Labor’s attitude commonly takes its temper from the 
economic force in, the background, and hence, from the 
idealistic point of view, there is a fundamental fallacy 
in the prevailing labor philosophy. One of the writers 
once remarked to a labor leader that from the churches’ 
point of view the ultimate question is always one of right. 
He replied with a smile, “From my point of view, it is a 
question of munitions”—that is to say, economic resources 
for a struggle. There is much of this force psychology 
in the labor movement. And one need only follow the 
history of a conflict like the great steel strike of 1919 to 
know that the employers likewise depend chiefly on force 
to bring them victory in such a contest—force not always 
limited to economic compulsion, but sometimes extending 


STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS 67 


to physical violence, in order to overpower the leaders of 
a strike. They very generally employ secret service and 
private police, and they seek in a variety of ways to secure 
control of the civic power. One of the chief uses of a 
financial surplus is the financing of recurring fights with 
labor. The difference between labor and employers in a 
hotly contested battle is a question of the resources avail- 
able at the moment. What is perhaps most to the point is 
that scarcely any person or group is to-day free from this 
force psychology. Force is still the main dependence of 
nations. Governments that do not count in terms of gun- 
boats and battalions get relatively small consideration from 
powerful nations. Some trust in chariots and some in 
horses; few remember the name of the Lord. 

This is the background against which we are attempt- 
ing to construct a Christian ideal. It would have been 
simpler to prescribe counsels of perfection from the Ser- 
mon on the Mount. That we have not done so here is no 
indication of a lack of faith in the complete sufficiency and 
ultimate triumph of those principles. Rather it is because 
the industrial world seems at this moment to need plans 
and specifications more than absolute ethical precepts. 
From the Christian point of view it has an architect: it 
needs a builder. 


For THE Discussion GROUP 


Who is mainly responsible for the hundreds of strikes 
that occur yearly—the workers themselves, their leaders, 
or the employers? Or is the responsibility evenly divided ? 

Ts a man’s right to his job on the same plane as an 
owner’s right to his property? Is your answer based on 
law, on ethics, or on both? 

Is a strike always an evil? Is it sometimes the lesser 
of two evils? 

Is a strike on a public utility—a railroad, for example 
—ever justified? If so, under what circumstances? What 
about a strike of policemen or firemen? What is the 
governing principle? 

If one holds that all strikes are unjustifiable acts on the 
part of labor, is he thereby required, logically, to hold 


68 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


that the use of force in general is wrong? Must an indus- 
trial pacifist be a political pacifist? What is the effect on 
the industrial situation of our continued reliance on force 
in international relations? Are the two cases parallel ? 

Is compulsory arbitration of industrial disputes a right 
policy on the part of the community? Which side has 
most to lose by it? Are employers more friendly to this 
method than workers? 

If the community limits the “right to strike’ on the 
part of workers employed on public utilities, is it under 
obligation to make some special provision for the safe- 
guarding of their interests? If so, what sort of safeguard 
would you suggest ? 


CHAPTER VII 


CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP IN INDUSTRY—THE 
NEW GAME 


Matthew 7. 24-27; Romans 12. 4-8 


Is the desire for fellowship as fundamental in human 
nature as the pursuit of private gain or advantage? Can 
the business of producing and distributing the goods of 
the world be made a fellowship of service? That is to 
say, can industry be made as fundamentally Christian as 
a missionary enterprise? Or can we only hope to lop 
off here and there the crudities of our competitive regime ? 
What does Christianity mean for the industrial world it- 
self—for its aims, its ideals, its processes? 


THE QUEST OF THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL 


We have reached the middle of our course and have not 
yet attempted to define a Christian ideal for industry. 
This has been quite intentional on the writers’ part for 
the reason that this course is not an attempt to superim- 
pose a set of principles or ideals upon the industrial world. 
It is rather an attempt to work out a problem in the light 
of Christian ideals. Much has been written on the social 
ideals of Christianity that has been helpful as an interpre- 
tation of the mind of Christ and of the Christian com- 
munity, but for the most part neither employers nor 
workers have been inclined to take idealistic writing 
seriously. To be sure, an increasing number of employers 
are making an attempt at applying what they consider 
Christian principle—and sometimes specifically in terms 
of the Golden Rule—to their business and industrial re- 
lationships, but the problem still remains of determining 
what, specifically, the Golden Rule means. Ethical prog- 
ress cannot be made by securing formal assent to prin- 


69 


70 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


ciples save as these principles are made increasingly opera- 
tive in concrete situations. 


Wuart Is CuRIstTIANITy ? 


In the chapters that have preceded we have been try- 
ing to find ourselves in the struggle of the industrial 
world; to understand the problems of every group con- 
cerned in industry so that out of the struggle itself we 
may find our way to some ethical judgments. Are we 
ready now to state somewhat definitely what Christianity 
means as applied to industrial relations? The obvious 
and often-heard answer is that the only thing necessary 
in industry is that all employers and workers should be 
converted to Christianity. That is, of course, from our 
point of view, strictly true, but what are we going to say 
concerning the employers and labor leaders who are among 
the most active professors of Christianity, and in no 
hypocritical sense, but who nevertheless are among the 
most active sources of industrial discontent? Employers 
and business men who are pious in their professions and 
devout in their practices and whose interest in religion 
is beyond question are nevertheless sometimes found in 
the front ranks of disturbers of the industrial peace. 


REDEMPTION OF THE WorLD Versus Escare From It 


Is not all this due to the fact that Christianity has been 
misconceived as to its essentials? Its application to busi- 
ness and industry is considered to be incidental and 
secondary. The heart of Christianity is taken to be prep- 
aration for another kind of world than that in which we 
live rather than the transformation of the world we live 
in, so that it will be the kind of world that Christian nur- 
ture prepares one for. Perhaps the drama of The Pil- 
grim’s Progress has influenced our minds so much that we 
have difficulty in thinking of Christianity as a program 
of redemption. We tend, rather, to think of it as a means 
of release from life in an essentially evil world. In the 
early days of Christianity the church was thought of in 
the figure of an ark of salvation, and the suggestion 


CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP IN INDUSTRY 71 


always carried by that figure is one of escape from a 
world which is so bad that it is only fit for destruction. 
But those who talk of social salvation and a gospel for 
industry read the New Testament otherwise. They find 
in it a promise of redemption for the world itself. They 
believe that if human nature is individually redeemable, 
then human institutions and relationships must also be 
redeemable. 

It is our view that the chief purpose which Jesus came 
to further was the building of a spiritual brotherhood in- 
clusive of all mankind, and that the central thing, there- 
fore, in Christianity is the ideal and the practice of fellow- 
ship. Our task is to erect this spiritual structure against 
the background of struggle and bitterness upon which 
we have been looking. Perhaps we might state it in this 
way: that we are seeking a world, not of warring groups 
but of cooperating groups; that the aim of life is to secure 
from every person and every group the greatest contribu- 
tion in service of which he is capable; that everybody has 
a stake in what everybody else does. It is a new kind of 
game in which the goal is not to overcome other human 
beings but to conquer nature and to master life in the 
interest of all men. 


THe Uses or Conruict 


History seems to show that groups of human beings 
attain harmony of action through struggle. Conflict is 
itself a part of the process of socialization. Why should it 
be considered necessarily bad in itself? Its evil consists 
in a failure to issue in something higher. In a given 
stage of political life it may be said that war is inevitable, 
and the same may be said about strife in industry. But 
the purpose of conflict is served only as it renders future 
conflict less inevitable. No careful observer of the labor 
movement can fail to be impressed with the spiritual 
quality of labor’s struggle and sacrifice for a higher status 
and greater freedom. The encounter with employers and 
with owners has often had an unquestionable spiritual 
value. There are moral tasks to be done in the world 
that cannot be done with gloves. Is not the test of conflict 


02 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


on the ethical side the degree to which it removes barriers 
to future fellowship among men? 

All this is said in full recognition that labor’s struggles 
are often as crass as those of predatory interests. The 
difference is in the result. By and large, must we not 
admit that labor’s struggles have issued in a broader basis 
for fellowship, and a more universal concept of citizen- 
ship? The employers likewise have had their costly ex- 
perience of conflict—among themselves as well as against 
the labor movement. Even where they have not had 
justice on their side they have perhaps paid the inevitable 
price of a broader vision and a greater service. 


FELLow VICTIMS 


Might it not be said that the parties now struggling 
with each other in industry are not so much mutual 
antagonists as fellow victims of a regime of force and 
struggle? It was frequently remarked during the Great 
War that its tragedy was enhanced by the fact that men 
fought each other like tigers who had no personal griev- 
ance; who, left to themselves, and freed from the gigantic 
mechanism of destruction, would fraternize and become 
friends. Likewise it is often observed that representatives 
of employing and labor interests meet on the same plat- 
form and exchange warm personal greetings, although in 
their official capacities they fight bitterly. There is a 
fellowship even in hostile combat; the combatants may be 
together paying the price of future freedom. 


Tur HicHEerR ConrFruicr 


Scholarly writers have been objecting in recent years 
to the many programs of betterment that have been 
brought forward by social idealists because they say that 
humanity would not be satisfied in a world where there 
was nothing or nobody left to fight. But is this not like 
leaving a youth surrounded by whisky fumes and typhoid 
germs and licentious literature so that he may have some- 
thing wherewith to develop manly resistance? To remove 
the necessity of struggle on the low levels of life frees 
one’s mental and moral energies for struggle on the higher 


CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP IN INDUSTRY 73 


levels. We have the whole intellectual and moral world 
to conguer; why spend our energies in conflict with one 
another? Theodore Roosevelt once said to a crowd of 
ministers of different faiths: “You have a big target to 
shoot at. I hope you will not waste your ammunition 
shooting at each other.” 

Let us ask, if the Christian ideal of fellowship were 
actually regnant in the world, how industrial activities 
and relationships would be modified. 


A Jos For EveryBopy 


Are we not safe in saying at the outset that if there is 
anything in the ideal of human fellowship or brother- 
hood with reference to industry, such an ideal would mean 
in the first place that everybody should work? This 
means, of course, everybody in good health between the 
age limits of productive labor. Incidentally it would 
also imply employment so far as possible for the handi- 
capped, in order that they might not be denied the satis- 
faction of work, which human beings seem normally to 
require. The provision for productive industrial employ- 
ment of men who are maimed by the loss of a limb or the 
loss of sight, for example, makes possible the retention of 
what might be called free industrial citizenship for many 
who would otherwise be dependent and suffer the de- 
moralizing consequences of pauperdom. Henry Ford’s 
plants appear to have accomplished almost unbelievable 
results in this direction by finding jobs for the maimed 
that they can do just as well as those not handicapped at 
all. Our industrial rehabilitation law and the machinery 
of its operation have unmeasured spiritual value. But 
we are chiefly concerned with the able-bodied men and 
women who make up our communities. During the war 
we applied a “work or fight” principle, which was given 
the force of law, if not by statute, at least by public 
opinion. One nation, Bulgaria, has undertaken to make 
a certain amount of work compulsory in time of peace. 


Hozsors—Botu Kinps 
It is easy enough to enforce such a regulation at the 


74 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


lower end of the industrial ladder, but what about the 
vagrants in automobiles and on horseback? Should not 
a rule that works for a ragged hobo work likewise for a 
well-dressed one? And what about the young woman 
whose occupation appears on a legal report blank as “at 
home”? Are there women vagrants of the indoor variety? 
If the young woman is “at home” because she has a job 
there, of course the case is different. But it is hard to 
reconcile with the Christian ideal living on income that 
one does nothing to earn. 


JUDGING A JOB 


But surely this ideal is concerned with what one works 
at. For there are many things commonly done that we 
cannot imagine Jesus doing—or even Martin Luther or 
John Wesley. Certain of them we should all agree on, 
probably, at the mere mention of them—running a low- 
class amusement house, for example, or a pawnshop; 
likewise, gambling, whether big or little. But then there 
comes a long list of things about which there may be a 
great difference of opinion. A man was heard to say 
recently that he could not engage in the jewelry busi- 
ness because he thought it was not productive, and hence 
not socially justifiable. He is in the business of making 
farm implements. Certainly, the latter is much more 
essential, closer to the actual needs of humanity than the 
former. Yet many would feel that jewelry may be in a 
very real sense “goods,” and that this adverse judgment 
was too sweeping. Well, then, what about chewing gum 
or tobacco? Clearly, we could never agree on all the 
specific instances that we might name, but could we 
perhaps agree on a general principle? That principle 
might be stated thus: that the purpose of all work is to 
render a service, to enrich the lives of human beings—both 
those who do the work and those who consume the product 
—and that no consideration of profit or reward justifies 
a business that cannot meet this test. 


Tue Doom oF THE USELESS 
Such a proposition cuts across at once the often ex- 


CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP IN INDUSTRY 75 


pressed idea that whatever gives employment to labor is a 
justifiable enterprise provided it is not positively harmful. 
For example, here is a cosmetics establishment. No one 
‘argues that cosmetics rank high as economic goods, and 
probably most of us would list them, in our most serious 
and honest moments, among the dispensable things for 
which there is nevertheless a very pronounced demand. 
But, barring compounds that are injurious, many people 
would say that so long as such goods can be sold and 
their manufacture employs thousands of laborers, no 
further question need be asked. Nevertheless, our econo- 
mists are telling us to-day that another very important 
question needs to be asked—namely, what good does the 
article in question do? Now, many will be found to assure 
us that this particular class of goods plays a very im- 
portant part in life. Perhaps so; but the point here is 
that évery industry or business should be able to defend 
itself not merely from the charge of harmfulness but 
from the charge of uselessness. Is not this a Christian 
principle? Every branch that bears no fruit must be cut 
down. The men and women employed in a nonproductive 
industry might be employed in a productive one. Money 
paid for that which is not bread might as well have been 
thrown into the sea. Perhaps one of the most fruitful 
things that Christians, particularly Christian young peo- 
ple, could do is to consider and compare all sorts of occupa- 
tions as to their relative usefulness, not only with refer- 
ence to entering them but with reference to encourag- 
ing them with their investments. 


Wuat Is Wrone in InvbustRY? 


But assuming that we have everybody at work doing 
something recognized as useful, the fact remains that the 
industries in which most of the trouble occurs are those 
of unquestioned usefulness and importance—coal mining, 
steel making, garment making, railroads, building, for ex- 
ample. Why is it that such essential processes do not 
go on in harmony and peace? The Christian diagnosis is 
that there is no fellowship in them. 

Now, this word “fellowship,” like the word “love,” is 


76 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


likely to be interpreted to mean something very conven- 
tional and, it is to be feared, very impractical and unreal. 
But consider a moment. Is it not the very thing that em- 
ployers are constantly talking about when they tell their 
workingmen that industry is a partnership, and that capi- 
tal and labor cannot be in conflict because their interests 
are identical? Is not the thing that Christianity offers the 
very thing that industrial leaders want and imagine they 
can secure by simply getting workers to accept a formula? 
And all the time the workers are convinced that there is 
no partnership but, rather, essential conflict, because, 
as matters stand, the interests of the two groups are not 
identical but in sharp contrast. 


Unpber-Cover IDEALISM 


Is it not very illuminating that the words which are 
central to our Christian religion—love, fellowship, good 
will, service—should be considered a bit out of place in 
the business world? ‘The war brought us some rare ex- 
amples of these virtues, but the vocabulary was different. 
Brotherhood was summed up in the term “buddy.” The 
supreme sacrifice was “going west.” Idealism there was 
aplenty, but men scorned its conventional names. So in 
industry, even if a man does a fine thing for his em- 
ployees, he wants it known as “straight business.” 

This suppression of idealistic motives is in accord with 
what seems to be a general agreement that when “senti- 
ment” gets into business, either someone is a hypocrite or 
someone is going broke. Christianity cuts straight across 
this theory. It aims to put social motives at the center, 
not at the periphery of life; to build upon the foundation 
of consciousness of kind and identity of interest that is 
being laid by means of a struggle and conflict in the 
industrial world, until its travail shall issue in a new 
brotherhood from which no individual or group shall be 
excluded. 


For tHe Discussion Group 


Are we interested in Christianity primarily because of 
what it offers in private spiritual satisfactions and future 


CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP IN INDUSTRY 77 


hopes, or because it promises a redeemed world? Does 
it promise a redeemed world, or only escape from the 
world ? 

It is related of Wendell Phillips that when asked if he 
considered that Christianity had failed he replied, “I 
don’t know; it has never been tried.” Do you agree with 
him? 

Think of the most generous and public-minded em- 
ployers and business men in the community ; now run over 
in your mind the most religious men, the most devoted 
to the church and its activities; are they the same peo- 
ple in each case? If not, why not? If the majority of 
industrial leaders are Christians, why is industry not yet 
Christianized ? 

Is fellowship a major or a minor fact in life? Which 
does the average person care more for—his private posses- 
sions and interests or the approval of his fellows and the 
enjoyment of their society? 

Assuming that it is generally agreed that every able- 
bodied person ought to work, should the state tax idle- 
ness, or should the matter be left to moral suasion ? 

What is the relative merit, from the Christian point of 
view, of the tobacco industry? the diamond industry? 
munitions? books? victrolas? locomotives? flowers? 

Is it unchristian to engage in producing something that 
it would be unchristian to use? 

In the world as it is to-day can any idealistic young 
person find a lifework that squares fully with his ideals? 


CHAPTER VIII 


NEW MOTIVES FOR OLD—THE GOAL OF THE 
GAME 


Luke 2. 49; 1 Corinthians 3. 9-15 


Wuar is the strongest incentive to physical and mental 
effort? Must it be assumed that even a Christian man is 
dominated by enlightened self-interest in the sphere of 
his trade, business, or profession? Is the Golden Rule a 
counsel of perfection, having reality only in a super- 
natural world, or is it to be taken seriously with reference 
to life as it is? Is human nature essentially selfish; and 
if so, can it be changed? 


CHRISTIANITY IN Bustness—AssetT oR HANDICAP? 


A few years ago a group of prominent persons in 
an Eastern city were discussing in a prayer meeting the 
old question, Can a man be a Christian and succeed in 
business? One very thoughtful man, an employer of 
labor, said that he was sure the answer was Yes; but he 
was inclined to think that a Christian could not make as 
much money in business as a man who made no Christian 
profession. In other words, being a Christian was, as a 
New York politician once said of being a Presbyterian in 
Tammany Hall, “something of a handicap.” This was 
quite to the point, whether or not one agrees with the 
sentiment expressed. But the most interesting comment 
came from a lawyer who said, “Of course one can be 
a Christian and succeed in business; if not, then there 
must be something wrong with Christianity.” I¢ did not 
occur to him that there might be something wrong with 
business. It is to be feared that most of us when we find 
principles out of line with practice make a strenuous 
effort first to warp the principles. 

But is there not a sense in which the lawyer was right? 


78 


NEW MOTIVES FOR OLD 79 


That is to say, whatever we may think of this or that 
phase ef the modern world of business or industry or 
politics, no system of morals that will not meet the re- 
quirements of a crowded world of human beings can long 
sustain itself. If it is not possible to produce goods and 
consume them, to marry and be given in marriage, and to 
do all the other elemental things that are necessary to our 
common life in a way that is fully reconcilable with our 
ethical ideals, are we not really under the necessity of 
frankly confessing that our ideals are impossible of realiza- 
tion in this world and of finding a new set of ideals that 
are in accord with life as it has to be lived? For instance, 
we have discarded the monastic ideal of life because it 
doesn’t work. If it should be discovered that a Christian 
ideal for industry would not produce the goods we need to 
live on, doubtless we should all agree that our ideal needed 
adjustment to reality. 


Tuer Test of THE GoLDEN RULE 


Sooner or later we have to face this problem. Every- 
body agrees that if there is a Christian ideal for industrial 
relations it is built up around the idea of service, of co- 
operation. But a large part of the working world seems 
to be quite convinced that no such ideal will work. “It is 
all very well,” we hear men say, “for personal and private 
relations, but you can’t conduct a business on that basis.” 
An official in an industrial concern who was also an active 
churchman recently said, “It probably ought to be the 
kind of world in which business and industry can be con- 
ducted according to the Golden Rule, but it isn’t.” Thus 
we come to have two systems of ethics, one for personal 
and private relations and another for our corporate rela- 
tions and responsibilities. And we do not seem to have 
any difficulty in squaring both codes with a Christian 
profession. Does not this remind one unpleasantly of the 
German professor’s remark that the commandment to 
love your neighbor is without doubt binding in individual 
relationships, but that “for a German to love a French- 
man as himself is the political sin. against the Holy 
Ghost!” It is hard to see why such a doctrine is any 


80 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


worse when applied to international than when applied to 
industrial relations. 

The difficulty here seems to be that most of us assume 
that human affairs are commonly carried on for reasons 
that cannot be justified from the Christian point of view; 
that the world is not only unsanctified but unsanctifiable. 
It may be worth while to inquire whether the world of 
practical affairs is as bad as all that, whether human 
nature is so dismally unregenerate that it takes a war or 
other great catastrophe to release noble motives. What, 
after all, is it that induces people to play their part in 
the game of life? 


Wuy WorkK? 


After all, why do we work? Why does anybody work? 
It is true that we work just because it is a way to get 
food, clothing, and shelter? Samuel Johnson is reputed 
to have said that if he hadn’t been hungry, he never 
would have written a book. But certainly there are multi- 
tudes of people who are not obliged, economically, to 
work who nevertheless prefer to be constantly employed. 
The sons. of wealthy men are often among the hardest 
workers. In the last few years we have heard much about 
“instincts in industry” and the “instinct of workmanship.” 
It is a fair question whether people of normal health and 
intelligence do not work because it is in them to work, 
because they would be “lost without it.” <A certain 
metropolitan suburb has a large plot of ground devoted to 
“community gardens,” where plots are assigned to any. 
residents of the community who want them. Many peo- 
ple who work all day in the city take two and three garden 
plots and put in some of the hardest work of the summer 
on them with only an incidental money reward. . Physi- 
cians tell us that among women who are not habitually 
gainfully employed the most serious kinds of nervous dis- 
orders develop just because of the lack of wholesome em- 
ployment. We seem to require something to throw our- 
selves into, to identify ourselves with. Commonly money 
reward is taken as the measure of success in business, 
industry, or profession. But is that equivalent to saying 


NEW MOTIVES FOR OLD 81 


that men work primarily for material gain? Men who 
have acquired all the money they need tend to think in 
other terms—building up a business to leave behind them, 
or making a record in volume or skill of achievement, dis- 
covery, or invention. 

Here is something interesting to speculate upon: Sup- 
pose everyone were provided with all the natural necessi- 
ties of life, what would people do? Would they go on 
working just the same or would most people take a 
grand lay-off? If they would take the lay-off, if human 
nature is like that, then it would seem rather hopeless to 
pursue the quest of a Christian ideal for industry. For 
it is-rather hard to imagine a Christian attitude toward 
work on the part of creatures who are so made that they 
would not work if they did not have to. 


SALVATION IN WorK 


Dr. Richard Cabot in a well-known book answers the 
question “what men live by” with a fourfold prescription : 
work, play, love, and worship. According to this philos- 
ophy, work is an end in itself. That is to say, apart from 
the social end that industry serves, it is to the men and 
women who participate in it a fulfillment of their own 
natures. And if this is true, the ideal held by many peo- 
ple, that the goal of all work is to reach a position where 
they will not have to work, is quite erroneous. The no- 
tion sometimes advanced by labor leaders that the indus- 
trial emancipation of the world is to be found in fewer 
hours of work and correspondingly more leisure would 
likewise, from this point of view, be far from correct. 
For, according to the view of work we have been con- 
sidering, we should look for the salvation of the world in 
its work, not in escape from it. 


ALTRUISM 


But a person may be very industrious without being 
very useful. He may spend many valuable hours per- 
fecting his private radio with no conspicuous benefit re- 
sulting to the community. One needs only to look into 
the Gospels to make up his mind that whatever the Chris- 


82 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


tian ideal may be in detail, it demands that the motive of 
all work shall be that of service to one’s fellows. To be 
sure, altruism sometimes becomes a sort of negative affair. 
A small boy in a philosophical mood once asked his 
mother, “What are we here for?” to which she replied 
in conventional phrase “To help others, my son.” He 
contracted his brows over this reply and presently came 
back with “And what are the others here for?” We have 
to find a motive that includes ourselves and others too. 
There is nothing ascetic about the social ideal of living. 
We do not have to be immolating ourselves perpetually 
after we have found ourselves in fellowship. 


“Not In Business For Our HEALTH” 


Admittedly this service ideal is far from regnant in 
the world to-day. The majority of people probably would 
say that they are working for the money they can make 
and that no one can be expected to work hard without a 
proportionate money reward. “We are not in business 
for our health.” It is generally assumed that people will 
not work unless driven to it by need; that no one will 
invest his money in an enterprise unless he is reasonably 
certain that it is the best-paying safe proposition that he 
can find. Yet there are few people who actually live down 
to the level of that crude statement. In fact, many a per- 
son deliberately chooses an employment that is not as 
lucrative as others because of what it means in terms of 
service. And money is often invested in an enterprise that 
yields small financial returns but large rewards of a non- 
material sort. Many a corporation deliberately limits its 
earnings in order to pay better wages or in order to play 
fair with its customers. A bank has been known to resist 
the most tempting rates of interest when a moral prin- 
ciple was at stake. An employer often makes concessions 
to his workers to his own financial loss. But to cite such 
examples is to emphasize their comparative rareness. The 
principle of industry for service is not established in the 
world; in fact, it is very definitely opposed. There are 
men of good character, judged by all the common stand- 


NEW MOTIVES FOR OLD 83 


ards, who resist the notion that industry can be conducted 
on an idealistic basis. 


Wuar Is Inpustry For? 


A minister once wrote a criticism of the Interchurch 
report on the steel strike in which he insisted that the 
purpose of the steel industry is to produce steel, and hence 
he scoffed at many human issues that were raised in the 
Interchurch report. But suppose we analyze that a bit. 
Obviously the reason why our industrial plants have come 
into being is the necessity for material goods. Assuming 
that the goods in question are real goods that actually 
enrich life, then surely it is reasonable to insist that any 
idealistic proposal for industrial reorganization must de- 
liver the goods. And it is not sufficient that individuals 
may be found here and there who are willing to run their 
factories without profit during a period of depression, 
inspiring as that sight may be. The ultimate test is a 
practical one. Can business men everywhere be induced 
to run their enterprises for service all the time, and can 
they make a success on that basis? Of course a man may 
be so unselfish that he will run his business at a loss. It 
may well be argued that unless a man actually prefers to 
run his business at a loss rather than to violate the Chris- 
tian ideal he is unworthy of the great Christian adventure 
of life. But let us face the facts. If the Christian ideal 
means to run business at a loss, the Christian ideal will 
run into the ground. We are brought right back to where 
our lawyer friend left us, although the question as he 
put it revealed, perhaps, a rather questionable motive. Is 
it not true that in industry as elsewhere Christianity must 
be judged by its fruits? 


THE QuEST oF INCENTIVES 


Many people seriously believe that the old game of 
competitive strife will produce more and better goods in 
the long run than the method of cooperation and the 
motive of service; they feel, though they would not say 


84 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


so, that Christianity is a religion for the cloister rather 
than for practical life. But most people who take this 
view will not follow it to the logical conclusion. They 
take the easy course and give lip service to the higher ideal 
and during six days of the week frankly follow the lower. 
And it must be admitted that the practicability of the 
Christian ideal has never been fully demonstrated. Yet 
it is susceptible of proof. The great question facing the 
Christian community to-day is a scientific question: Is 
the Christian ideal practicable as a way of life? If not, 
then Bunyan’s pilgrim was right from his point of view. 
He wanted to live in a good world and he decided to 
run for it. But if Christianity can be made a science of 
practical living, then what we want is Christian engineers 
and employers and labor leaders who will build a new 
industrial order wherein will dwell righteousness. 


“TuMAN Nature Cannot Br CHANGED” 


Those who take the pessimistic view of this problem 
commonly base their objections on the ground that to 
displace self-interest as the controlling factor in life 
means to “change human nature”—and that can’t be done! 
Is it not a bit strange to hear Christian men and women 
talking that way? They take the regeneration of the 
individual life for granted, but they do not see the possi- 
bility of a regeneration of human relationships. Man is 
made in the image of God, but the world he lives in is a 
bad world and the Almighty himself cannot redeem it! 
Is that not a bit preposterous? 

It is related of Dr. Josiah Strong, one of the earliest of 
the present generation of apostles of a Christian social 
order, that after he had on a certain occasion addressed 
a group of ministers, one of them rose and flung at him 
the old pessimistic objection. “Don’t you realize,” he 
said, “that the idealistic program you have been present- 
ing would require a complete change of human nature ?” 
Doctor Strong was on his feet in a second. “Precisely so,” 
he replied, “and it was to men like you that Jesus said, 
“Ye must be born again’ ” 


NEW MOTIVES FOR OLD 85 


Tue Dawn oF MoRALITY 


There is nothing unscientific in the belief that mutual 
service rather than self-interest will prove to be the most 
powerful motive in the life of the world. How did the 
moral sense of mankind develop in the first place? We 
are all familiar with the principle of the struggle for 
existence which biologists hold to be responsible for the 
evolution of life along definite lines. We can easily ac- 
count for muscular strength, keenness of sight, and fleet- 
ness of foot on the basis of struggle between individuals 
because these traits aided the individual in the competi- 
tion for survival. But how did morality come to have a 
“survival value”? ‘Tennyson refers to the struggle for 
existence in his memorable lines: 


“Though nature, red in tooth and claw, . 
With ravine, shrieked against his creed.” 


Where do altruism, service, sacrifice fit into such a process ? 

There is no other visible explanation of the develop- 
ment of morality in the world than that it came about 
through the association of human beings in groups for 
mutual aid. Morality came to have a survival value when 
the ability to live harmoniously with one’s fellows became 
a condition of safe existence. Thus the individual had 
the protection of his group instead of standing, like 
Ishmael, alone against the world. Is it not reasonable 
to suppose that in the struggle, not with other human 
beings, but with the forces of nature which man under- 
takes to bend to his will, it will yet be found that coopera- 
tion in fellowship and good will is a vastly greater crea- 
tive force than the brute struggle “Every man for him- 
self, and the devil take the hindmost”? Thus may Chris- 
tianity come to be understood as the only truly scientific 
way of life. 


For tHE Discuss1on GROUP 


Do you agree with the employer who thought that he 
could make more money if he were not a Christian? What 
about the lawyer who thought that if business and Chris- 


86 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


tianity were not compatible, something must be wrong 
with Christianity ? 

A young college student said recently: “I’m for Chris- 
tianity because I believe it will work in the world to-day. 
If it won’t work, I’m off it.” Is that a fair statement ? 

Is the assumption warranted that men work mainly be- 
cause they have to or for hope of gain? How would the 
average person like one month of work and eleven months’ 
vacation? Instinctively, are we workers or hoboes? 

What incentives are strongest in your own experience ? 
Do the people who seem to be best satisfied with life ap- 
pear to be seeking material rewards or something differ- 
ent? 

Is there such a thing as competition in service? How 
does it compare ethically with competition for wages oT 
profits? Can you imagine Jesus competing for anything ? 

Is human nature essentially selfish or is the apparent 
selfishness only an adjustment to a competitive order? Is 
the familiar statement “Human nature cannot be 
changed” true? Do we know what human nature is 
capable of in the way of social effort until we try? 

If it is admitted that “the business of the steel indus- 
try is to produce steel,” may it still be said that that 
establishment will produce most steel which most con- 
sistently developsapersonality and builds fellowship? In 
other words, can competition compete with cooperation? 


CHAPTER IX 
THE RULES OF THE GAME 
Micah 6. 6-8; 2 Timothy 2. 1-6 


How can industry be made a fellowship of productive 
service—efficient not only in the production of goods but 
in the making of men? Can there be orderly government 
without compulsion and force, without one man being the 
master of many? Can workers and employers go beyond 


the “bargaining” stage and make industry a self-govern- 
ing whole? 


Tue New GAME AND THE OLD 


We have again and again referred to industry as a 
game. We have clung to that figure because there seems 
to be an instinctive element of risk and adventure in life 
that is fundamental to work as well as to play. It is highly 
significant that whenever we find ourselves free we start 
up @ game or something or other, and that the work men 
do most intensely is the thing that has most of the gaming 
element in it. How large a part this gaming element 
plays in life is a matter for psychologists to determine. 
But it requires only a little observation and reflection to 
discover that it plays an important part. The instinctive 
fondness for adventure it is hard to get rid of, perhaps 
impossible. Why should we try? It is not the fact of 
playing a game that matters, but the kind of game we 
play and the way we play it. 

Now, what is the difference between the old game and 
the new game that we have proposed? There is much 
to be said for the present order of things in industry. As 
Seebohm Rowntree says, speaking of Great Britain, 
“It gets forty million people up and at work every morn- 
ing.” That’s something. And there are many industrial 
establishments where the crudities of competition are 


87 


88 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


softened in a remarkable degree by considerateness on 
the part of management and by sober, wise leadership on 
the part of the workers. But, according to the view we 
are presenting here, the old game has two things wrong 
with it: first, the chances of the game are not) equal; 
secondly, the stakes of the game are not wholesome. And 
because the stakes are wrong the chances never can be 
equal. ‘This is the heart of the matter. The old game is 
comparable to a contest for a set of prizes whose number 
is limited. Victory for one means loss for others. The 
rewards are material and the physical and mental ability 
to contend for them successfully are unevenly distributed 
through the world. What can be done with that kind 
of a game? Obviously only what reformers are con- 
stantly trying to do—patch up the rules here and there 
by giving the weaker group a handicap. The old game 
is one that men play against each other. The new game 
is comparable rather to the game that the pioneer plays 
with nature or with himself. He is out to conquer the 
elements, to set new records of achievement, to beat his 
own previous records. From this point of view competi- 
tion with others becomes irrelevant. The new game is 
one that men play with each other. Its stakes are personal 
as well as material, and when they are material they are 
sought not for private but for social ends. | 


“BARGAINING” 


The old game in industry assumes that two groups are 
contending against each other, and that what is necessary 
is to even up the chances. A fair field and may the best 
man win! Thus we have come to think of a fair deal in > 
industry as expressed in terms of collective bargaining. 
To be sure, it may well be asked, Why bargain if there is 
a fundamental identity of interest? Paul’s great figure 
of the human body, with all its interdependent paris, is a 
tremendous one when one stops to take it in. Not merely 
is the hand unable to say to the eye, “I have no need of 
thee,” but the idea of competition as between the hand and 
eye is unthinkable. “So we, being many, are one body.” 
It is a revolutionary thought. Ultimately we may rise to 


THE RULES OF THE GAME 89 


a plane of cooperative living where bargaining will be 
meaningless. 

The kind of bargaining we are here discussing is not 
the mere exchange of goods or the sale of goods in which 
both seller and buyer are fully satisfied. The mechanism 
of exchange by which a fixed price is charged for com- 
modities relieves the bargaining process of much of its 
crudity. The business game as it is played to-day is a 
great improvement over the haggling and “beating down” 
and crafty efforts to gain advantage that would every- 
where be apparent in commerce if there were no market 
regulations and adjustments. Anyone who wants an 
illustration of the difference needs only to compare the way 
he feels on entering a standard-meter taxicab with his 
sensations when he commits himself to the mercies of a 
driver whose fares are determined by his own snap esti- 
mate of what the “traffic will bear.” Not only so, but 
the right, involved in the idea of bargaining, to enter or 
leave any employment at will has a moral value that must 
not be overlooked. Yet the fact remains that the bargain- 
ing of which we speak in industrial relations is at best a 
crude method of determining the “price” of labor. It 
_ proceeds on the basis, rejected theoretically by labor itself, 
of the “commodity theory” of labor. Little thought is 
given to what is the most equitable division of the prod- 
uct; the aim is, rather, to gain the greatest possible ad- 
vantage. The defects of any such process from the spir- 
itual point of view are apparent. 

Yet collective bargaining is an indispensable instru- 
ment in bringing about harmony between two contending 
groups. The value of the bargaining process is not prin- 
cipally in evening up chances nor yet in keeping the peace. 
If it is a bad peace, it ought not to be kept. Of what use 
would a successful bargain be to a spiritually minded 
employer if it were won at the cost of the employees’ 
happiness and good will? The value of bargaining is 
found, rather, in working out a basis of joint action in 
the common interest. It is a recognition of social inter- 
dependence, and as such is the first step in the creation 
of fellowship in industry. The new experiments in joint 


90 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


industrial government are of spiritual consequence be- 
cause they are resulting in making the rules and determin- 
ing the stakes of the new game. 


THE WORKER'S STRUGGLE FOR STATUS 


The stakes of the great conflict going on in industry 
to-day are not merely wages and hours. The primary 
question is one of status and of power. This is what the 
demand for recognition on the part of organized labor 
means. Gains in wages and working conditions are of 
no permanent value if they cannot be held secure against 
aggression and against untoward developments in the 
“labor market.” As the employers capitalize their posses- 
sions, so the workers are capitalizing their jobs. A labor 
union is something like a corporation in that by means 
of it the workers pool the titles to their jobs and act 
jointly in matters that affect them. 


THe Dras Routine 


But labor’s demand for a share in the control of indus- 
try would continue quite without reference to the question 
of the distribution of the product. Recall for a moment 
the remark which we quoted earlier from a conservative 
journal that “the new era has put personality in a steel 
niche, and it must stay put, else large-scale production 
is impossible.” Continuing, the writer said that “some 
plan must be found whereby men may become interested 
in their day’s work—this is fundamental. It is a 
twentieth-century problem, and history gives no clue to 
the solution.” If machine production has taken away the 
instinctive satisfactions in industrial labor, some other 
satisfaction must be found. Increased financial reward 
furnishes a considerable incentive, but the practical limits 
to such an increase are soon reached, and, besides that, 
there is a limit to the capacity to consume and the power 
to enjoy consumption. Money satisfies only a fraction of 
men’s elemental demands. Some other satisfaction must 
be discovered if industry is to be redeemed from the dull 
drab from which it is suffering. 


THE RULES OF THE GAME ot 


Tur Emppoyen’s DISADVANTAGE 


Much agitation has been felt over the suggestion that 
the workers should “own the works.” An American 
traveler was standing on the deck of a steamship in Eng- 
lish waters looking at the British fleet lying at anchor in 
the distance. He noted a Scotchman standing near him 
and made some remark about the fine appearance of the 
men-of-war. “Yes,” said the Scotchman, elevating his 
chest, “and I am one of the concern that own ’em.” It 
would hardly occur to anyone that the Scot had unwar- 
ranted designs on his Majesty’s ships! It is perhaps some 
such feeling as this that labor covets with respect to 
industry. 

The employer gets a large measure of satisfaction out 
of owning the plant and out of the material rewards which 
increased energy produces. Towering above the satisfac- 
tions of wealth are the satisfactions of power which wealth 
brings. A man who builds a great industry to leave 
behind him as a monument to his enterprise feels that 
in a sense this material structure is a part of his im- 
mortality. How much satisfaction of this kind can an 
employee have, even though he works a lifetime in one 
establishment, when he knows that at any time the organ- 
ization can dispense with his services and scarcely miss 
him? If aman cannot build himself into the concern of 
which he is a part, if he cannot think and originate and 
initiate in a way to make himself indispensable to the 
industry, and if he cannot see some fruit of his own crea- 
tive effort, he is not likely to thrill over his occupation. 


WoRKERS AS OWNERS 


We hear much about the cooperative movement as a 
remedy for inequalities in our economic system, and 
surely no student of the present-day tendencies can ignore 
the cooperative movement. It has profound and growing 
significance, especially in agriculture. Chiefly, however, 
in this country it is a consumers’ or a sellers’ movement, 
and has to do, not with primary industrial processes, but 
with marketing. Cooperative societies employ labor just 


92 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


as capitalistic organizations do and are not free from 
“labor troubles.” The cooperative movement is of great 
social and economic significance, but it has not yet indi- 
cated a solution of the labor problem. 

There are examples of producers’ cooperation where the 
workers in an industrial establishment themselves own 
the plant, either from its inception or by purchase from 
the original owner. Where the capitalist and labor func- 
tions are combined, the question of relative status is 
greatly simplified. The worker is an owner and the 
owner is a worker. Some of the recent Catholic litera- 
ture on industrial problems makes much of this plan, 
restoring as it does on its face much of what the workers 
lost when the old gild system gave way to the modern 
factory regime. 

Tt must not be supposed that what we are talking about 
is the equivalent of profit-sharing through the ownership 
of stock. The participation in proprietorship here re- 
ferred to has to do with the workingman-as such, not with 
the workingman as capitalist. There is much to be said 
for profit-sharing. But when the workers in a concern 
acquire each a bit of stock and become members of the 
army of minority holders they have done only what any 
outsider may do. Their holdings constitute a very small 
interest and represent no real power. If every industrial 
concern in the United States were a fifty-fifty profit-shar- 
ing enterprise, the labor problem would, in its essence, 
still remain. 

Then what is the answer? We have just noted that 
some Christian students and writers believe cooperative 
ownership by the workers is the answer, or at least one 
answer. But, granting the worth of this plan, it would 
manifestly take a great while for the workers to absorb the 
capital involved in modern industry. It would seem that 
if we can liberate the spirits of men as they go about the 
day’s work, the precise form of the fellowship they would 
create is a secondary matter. We must remember, how- 
ever, that there is involved not only a title to a job and 
perhaps to property, but the exercise of power, dignity, 
and initiative as well. The real trouble was indicated, 


THE RULES OF THE GAME 93 


better than she knew, by a little garment worker in New 
York who was telling to the arbitrator her grievance 
against the factory boss: “Why,” said she, “he looked at 
me sarcastic.” | 


INDUSTRIAL CITIZENSHIP 


In politics men find satisfaction in making their laws 
and securing the administration of those laws in accord 
with their will—or at least in making an effort to do so. 
The requirements of industrial government are comparable 
to those of political government. In fact, is it not prob- 
able that one of the reasons for the scant interest on the 
part of people in general in political affairs is that the 
major issues of life which center about our economic needs 
are so seldom determined by political action? It is much 
more important to a man to have a voice in determining 
the issues of his working life than to be able to vote for 
or against a protective tariff. And the very act of par- 
ticipating in industrial government furnishes a large 
measure of that interest and initiative of which the worker 
has been robbed by modern industrialism. As a highly 
specialized worker he cannot be expected to show enthu- 
siasm over the machine processes which he facilitates. It 
seems rather—and this brings us to the crux of the 
matter—that he must find his interest in the intellectual 
and social aspects of his working life and thus overbalance 
the monotony of the factory regime. Is it work that men 
dislike, or meaningless routine work, which makes no pro- 
vision for intellectual participation and the exercise of 
personality? “We have removed the humian factor,” says 
an advertisement displayed in the New York subway in 
announcing how safe the road has made its machinery. 
Just so. 

Here again the analogy of politics is instructive. Every 
schoolboy knows that the Boston Tea Party was not a 
revolt against taxation, but a revolt against taxation with- 
out a voice in the fixing of the tax or in the subsequent 
expenditure of the money. A large number of industrial 
disturbances which cripple industry to-day occur over 
fairly trivial matters and are the expression not so much 


94 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


of material demands as of dissatisfaction with an inferior 
status—a position of relative helplessness and unim- 
portance. Wage reductions have frequently been accepted 
without protest where there was an opportunity for free 
discussion and for dignified representation. Men have 
voted themselves reductions in pay and have done it with- 
out protest when they would have been sullen and re- 
bellious if the reductions had been forced upon them. 


DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY 


The term “industrial democracy” has been so freely 
used that it no longer has any definite meaning. Never- 
theless, it denotes a tendency which is one of the distinc- 
tive signs of our time. It begins with that surrender of 
autocratic control of industry which the twenty British 
Quaker employers called upon industrial leaders to make, 
and the substitution for it of conference, and government 
by consent. It often takes the form of collective dealing be- 
tween organizations of employers and labor unions. In fact, 
it is difficult to see how it can come about unless there is a 
mutual willingness to negotiate with the existing recog- 
nized organizations on each side, save where there is a 
compelling moral objection to such recognition. The 
price of recognition on the part of such an organization is 
honesty of purpose and fidelity to agreements. But bar- 
gaining is only a step in the democratic process. If the 
germ of democracy—might we not also say of Chris- 
tianity?—is present, the relationship becomes one of 
mutual respect and mutual concern for rights and duties. 

The essence of this new game, as we have been calling 
it, is a spirit; its visible body is a structure of joint gov- 
ernment which makes a constantly widening place for 
human fellowship. Structure without spirit is no better 
than formless debris. Many a concern has tried to put 
over a “plan” which, to adapt a Scripture phrase, “had 
the form of democracy but denied the power thereof.” 
Such a procedure is likely to end in a labor strike that 
will be hailed by uncomprehending employers as an evi- 
dence of the employees’ ingratitude. 


THE RULES OF THE GAME 95 


On the other hand, a spirit without a structure of gov- 
ernment is of little permanent value. With the passing 
of some engaging and benevolent personality it becomes 
but a ghost of what might have been. The best ideas and 
impulses ever let loose, if they are not to be speedily for- 
gotten, need to be blue-printed and built into a firm struc- 
ture. 


Are Att Men Equa? 


Democracy in industry, like democracy in politics, is 
not to be confused with any arbitrary notions of equality. 
Probably few people know what they mean by that term. 
Most of us, doubtless, would agree that men are not equal 
intellectually, not equal spiritually, not equal in personal 
force, not equal in social influence. But just as the most 
obscure man in a factory when his initiative is released 
may create something of inestimable worth, so one mind 
in a fellowship of minds may register in terms of spiritual 
values beyond all expectation and beyond all estimate. 
This means that democracy is more an act of faith than 
a theory of government. It has to be validated in experi- 
ence, but experience shows that there is no way to limit 
the. possibilities of the obscurest human being. And it is 
in an atmosphere of freedom, of respect for the individual, 
of appreciation of the rights and possibilities of others— 
those who are regarded as enemies as well as those who are 
regarded as friends—that the structure of an enduring 
government can be built, whether for industry or politics. 


Puayine THE New Game WITH THE PUBLIC 


Obviously it would be a simple matter for employers and 
workers to bury the hatchet if they buried it in the head 
of the consumer. ‘This is what many people are afraid 
of. But the new game that we are talking about is a 
straight game. It leaves no place for exploitation. The 
fulfillment of industrial citizenship is in service, just as 
the fulfillment of political citizenship is in patriotism. If 
there is anything in the fellowship ideal for industry, it is 
inclusive. It lifts the minds of men above the level of 
their physical performances and widens their interest be- 


96 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


yond the shop. Bargaining must give way to service, 
_ fear to trust, competition to mutual aid. This is not a 
dream—it is beginning to come to pass. 


For tHE Discussion GROUP 


Is there any evident desire on the part of either labor 
or capital for full cooperation? Do the unions want it, 
or would they prefer to trust to bargaining power to pre- 
serve their interests? Do employers want cooperation 
from their workers, or only tractability ? ? 

Is there any danger that harmonious cooperation be- 
tween employers and workers may lead to the exploitation 
of the consumer? Does this happen now? Can the “new 
game” leave the public out? | 

Is there anything unchristian in the mere act of bar- 
gaining between organized interests? Does bargaining 
necessarily imply that one party gains what another loses? 

Some. people oppose labor unions because they are 
belligerent and they keep industry divided into two hostile 
camps. Is the hostility in industry due mainly to labor? 
Should a belligerent union be curbed, or should its power 
and discipline be utilized in the direction of a responsible 
government in industry? 

Is an employer justified in refusing to recognize labor 
unions because they make for division instead of unity? 
Can harmony ard loyalty be promoted by denying the 
right of collective bargaining? 

Does a voice in management compensate the worker for 
the monotony of his job? Is the average worker competent 
to share the duties of management? Is he eager to do 
so? 

Employers are sometimes advised to go through the 
form of referring important matters to the workers so 
that “they will think they are doing it.” Does that satisfy 
the requirements of democracy? Does it fool the men? 

Should a Christian employer share profits? Should he 
admit the workers to privileges of ownership? Should 
they be allowed, as rapidly as they are able, to have a voice 
in shop control? wages? discipline? finance? 


THE RULES OF THE GAME or 


What does democracy mean? Is there any sense in 
which all men are equal? Someone has given this defini- 
tion: “Democracy means a chance for every man to be all 
that it is in him to be and the recognition of every man 
for all that he is.” Is that a good statement? Is it 
good Christianity? 


CHAPTER X 
STANDARDS OF LIVING—EVERYBODY’S GAME 
Matthew 5. 3-9; James 2. 1-5 


ARE we as Christian members of the community ready 
to assume a share of the responsibility for making indus- 
try a public service? How much have we to do with mak- 
ing the standards toward which the workers strive, and 
creating the economic conditions against which they con- 
tend? When we complain that the “innocent public” 
is made to bear the brunt of industrial disturbances, are 
we as innocent as we fancy? Are we in our individual 
lives an asset or a liability to the community? 


THE ConsumMER’s RESPONSIBILITY 


If there is to be fellowship in industry, it cannot be 
confined to employers, managers, and labor. The con- 
sumer of goods, the common citizen, must play his part. 
And what part is it that the consumer plays? In the 
long run he makes the standards of production since he 
makes the standards of life. He pays the bills. He is 
the potential organizer of the buyer’s strike—the most 
effective strike of all, the one that the employer can never 
break. The citizen-consumer has it in his power to de- 
termine the style of clothes that are worn, the richness 
of the food that is eaten, the elaborateness of the house- 
holds of the community, and the degree of luxury that peo- 
ple enjoy. The very existence of multitudes of industries 
and the value of miles of real estate in the average city 
are dependent upon the citizen-consumer’s idea of what 
is a desirable thing to eat or to wear, and what is a desir- 
able place to live. Here again in the matter of living 
standards we find ourselves falling back on the figure of 
a game—a game which everyone is playing. Most peo- 

98 


STANDARDS OF LIVING 99 


ple are like the guests at the scriptural marriage feast, 
waiting for the behest to “come up higher.” 


Our Sranparps OF LiviIne 


Much is said about the sins of the rich in setting arti- 
ficial standards which are then adopted by all classes in 
society whether there is any possibility of their realiza- 
tion or not; but the underlying fact is that the whole 
world pays tribute socially to the “lord of things as they 
are.” Thus, paradoxically, the things that divide us are, 
after all, the things that all classes have in common— 
the love of beauty and comfort, the satisfactions of the 
senses, the tendency to hero worship and the love of praise. 
Most people, no matter how poor—and perhaps more 
eagerly the poorer they are—read with rapt attention the 
accounts of royal weddings and thrill over the portrayal 
of luxury. They covet. attention from “social superiors” 
and are cowed by the frowns of those who sit in the seats 
of the socially mighty. Psychologists have regarded this 
an instinctive performance, and it used to be described as 
the instinct of “mastery and submission.” The interest- 
ing thing about it is that one changes with the greatest 
ease from one réle to the other. The man in the parable 
who cringed before his creditor and then went out and 
took his debtor by the neck was a type of humankind. 
We are creatures of a social environment which has 
arranged us all in a sliding scale. Everyone’s standard of 
living is a creation of economic circumstances which the 
whole community has a share in creating. 


Is tHe INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBLE ? 


But even recognizing this interdependence of social 
groups it is hardly fair for the individual to claim an alibi. 
This is a delightfully convenient thing to do. A young 
woman whose father pointed out to her that her sister’s 
spending allowance was less than her own said with com- 
fortable unconcern: “That’s all right. It costs more to 
keep me than it does to keep Rose.” This was equivalent 
to saying that one takes his standard of living as he does 
the color of his hair, as something belonging to native 


100 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


equipment for which he has no personal responsibility. 
As is usually true of questionable doctrines there is much 
to be said for this argument. It is quite absurd to say 
that all people, regardless of their cultural level, can live 
on the same amount of money. Would not a piano, which 
is a cultural necessity in some homes, be an absurd ex- 
travagance in others? And what shall be said of a library 
or of a collection of classic paintings? Undoubtedly cul- 
ture alters the whole texture of one’s life and makes one 
dependent upon certain environmental conditions to which 
others are not sensitive at all. But is it necessary that a 
home should be elaborate in order to be artistic? that a 
diet should be costly in order to be appetizing as well as 
wholesome ? 

Merely to say this suggests an important caution. Do 
not most of us view critically the standards of those who 
live on a higher scale economically than ourselves and 
find some measure of satisfaction in the greater frugality 
and simplicity of our own lives, and then excuse ourselves 
from practicing the economies of those who have smaller 
incomes on the ground that their standards of living are 
lower than our own? © 


THe Lever or “Socran Erricrency” 


This is a realm in which it is not possible to dogmatize ; 
and perhaps the most useful thing to do is to ask searching 
questions. If Christian people asked more questions con- 
cerning the requirements of the Christian way of life and 
discussed them with their friends, should we not make 
vastly greater progress in that direction? There is some- 
thing splendid in the spectacle of those twenty British 
Quaker employers taking solemn counsel together and then 
calling upon their fellow employers of other faiths or 
of no faith “to consider very carefully whether their style 
of living and personal expenditure are restricted to what 
is needed to insure the efficient performance of their func- 
tions in society.” Even this standard of social efficiency 
may conceivably justify extraordinary expenditures at 
times, but is it not clear that a Christian will not take 
such things as a matter of course ? 


STANDARDS OF LIVING 101 


The question is sure to arise whether this business of 
simplification may not be carried so far that the possibili- 
ties of culture would be reduced. Suppose the patronage 
of art should disappear and the pursuit of higher intellec- 
tual and esthetic interests should be unprovided for. The 
whole world is enriched by the intellectual and artistic 
efforts of a few. We cannot, even in the interest of the 
simple life, sacrifice the results of research and of creative 
artistic activity. But when we reason this way do we 
not forget that there are social and antisocial ways of 
supporting art and culture? A rich man may buy a 
porcelain collection and give it to a public museum, or 
he may lock it up at home for his own private satisfac- 
tion and the delectation of his friends. He may buy a 
great organ and place it in a public auditorium or he may 
confine its strains within the limits of his own domicile. 
He may encourage a talented artist by buying a picture 
that everybody may see or he may engage an artist to paint 
his own picture, which nobody is particularly anxious to 
see. 

But this may all be very simple and easy for us because 
we are not rich. It is one of the besetting sins of the 
middle class that they obscure their own sins in the 
shadows of those that seem larger. What about our own 
extravagances ? 


How Lavine Stanparps AFFECT FELLOWSHIP 


The whole scale of living standards that we have been 
talking about cuts across the spiritual ideal of fellowship. 
It separates where fellowship unites. It creates rivalries 
and animosities where fellowship creates good will. The 
man who maintains two automobiles for uses that could 
be as well performed by one, the woman who maintains a 
wardrobe beyond the requirements of utility and simple 
beauty—might it not be said that they are trafficking in 
the things that separate human beings in spirit rather 
than in the things that unite them. The minister whose 
living standard is away beyond that of the majority of his 
parishioners—is he not building up a barrier that all his 
spiritual ministrations will find it impossible to over- 


102 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


throw? The material consequences of this great variety of 
living standards are as great as the spiritual. The con- 
sumption of luxury goods keeps men and women engaged 
in producing them. Money that is invested in produc- 
ing luxury goods might be invested in producing goods 
for use. Luxury goods for the most part are consumed 
only by the wealthy. “Use” goods are consumed by every- 
body. If we look at it this way, the money and the time 
and the effort that we expend in ways that mean nothing 
to humanity as a whole are unjustified. 

We often hear it said that poor people are to blame 
for their condition because of wasteful expenditures and 
the habit of living beyond their means. But might it 
not be argued that the extravagances of the poor are cheap 
imitations of the extravagances of the well-to-do? It is 
not the libraries and art collections and opera tickets and 
vacations in the mountains—the more esthetic of the 
indulgences of the well-to-do—that the poor imitate, but 
their superficial display and noisy elegance. Might not 
people satisfy their taste for beauty and refinement with- 
out violating fellowship? The things that are most appeal- 
ing and permanently satisfying are the things that are 
most human—the things we can share. 


How Livine Stanparps AFFect INDUSTRY 


But are we still discussing industry, or have we run off 
into “stewardship” or something else? The fact is that 
nothing could be more germane to the subject of this 
course than the matter of personal expenditures. In the 
first place, it is because we have such a wide range of liy- 
ing standards and insist on defending them that the ques- 
tion of a living wage for the workers has thrown us into 
so much difficulty. Any attempt to budget the expendi- 
tures of a workingman’s family must result in assigning 
them a level of living that benevolently minded persons 
would be ashamed of or in putting the minimum at such 
a liberal level that the national income would never stand 
it. The easy course, therefore, has been to take refuge 
behind the economic difficulties of the situation and quit 
talking about a living wage. After several years of study, 


STANDARDS OF LIVING 103 


resulting in the promulgation of minimum standards by 
employers’ groups, labor agencies, and independent in- 
vestigators, there has been a tendency to abandon the 
whole “budget theory” of wage fixing. 

But in spite of this confusion the fixing of a minimum 
wage by law is favored by many people, especially for 
women workers. It is done in a number of States, al- 
though the Supreme Court decision in the District of 
Columbia case—that the fixing of a minimum wage is con- 
trary to the freedom of contract guaranteed by the Consti- 
tution—has made the future of this sort of legislation very 
doubtful. In any case, the fixing of a minimum wage by 
law is but a small part of the problem. The solution must 
be found within industry, not outside it. Wage increases 
that are forced invite the pyramiding of prices. Where 
there is no cooperative good will, no restraint self-imposed 
by the will to fellowship, no device will serve the purpose. 

Secondly, artificially high living standards (or perhaps 
we might say low, from an ethical point of view) require 
that many workers shall be permanently employed in 
producing luxuries and rendering needless services. This 
taxes our whole economic order and is partly responsible 
for the national deficit in production. Could not the 
economic ills of the world be largely met by deflecting 
capital from the production of luxuries to the production 
of necessities? That is, cost might be lowered to the 
point where the poorest might obtain food, clothing, and 
shelter in proportion to normal human needs. Labor 
employed in producing goods that only a few can enjoy 
lessens the production of goods that the many need. 


Tr LimItInc oF PrRopUCTION 


Furthermore, and most of all to the point, the differ- 
ence in living standards which so conspicuously violates 
fellowship is apparently the psychological reason for low 
production. The workers are naturally slow about in- 
creasing their product when the net social result seems to 
be merely a widening of the gulf that separates the eco- 
nomically dependent from the well-to-do. It is rather 
startling that in the last thirty years, in spite of a con- 


104. CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


siderable increase in the production from land and indus- 
try in America, the real wage—that is, purchasing power 
—of labor appears not to have increased. American labor 
is not radical—not yet. It is not demanding exclusive 
control of anything. Making due allowance for the more 
favored occupations, the heart has been taken out of labor 
by the seeming impossibility of improving its status in 
any marked degree. Employers are saying that labor is 
not playing the game. Quite so. Labor is coming to feel 
that the game—the old game—is not worth the candle. 
If society cannot devise a means whereby through dili- 
gence a worker may gradually improve the standard of his 
family’s living until it includes more and more of the 
things that go to make up a “good life? what can we 
expect but that he will put less and less energy into his 
work ? 

All this is unintelligible to a person whose attention is 
fixed on the high wages of certain privileged groups. That 
such groups profiteer when they have a chance simply 
serves to call attention to the crudeness of the old com- 
petitive game. The deficiencies of the workers and the 
noncooperative policies of many labor bodies are well 
known. Labor has lost many opportunities for signal 
service. But the fact that is written largest in the indus- 
trial situation, morally considered, is the inequality of 
privilege, emolument, and power. ‘This inequality is 
permanently registered in the contrast between living 
standards. 


A “Derictt InpustTRY” 


The textile industry gives an apt illustration of the 
difficulty. A high-minded employer in that industry has 
been trying for some years to put his establishments on a 
Christian basis. He has accomplished much, but he finds 
that the level of wages in the industry is so low and the 
margin of profit so small that even sharing profits “fifty- 
fifty” does not bring the workers within sight of what 
might be called a minimum comfort standard. Under 
such circumstances high production is not likely to be 
secured. Obviously there is an unlimited market for 


STANDARDS OF LIVING 105 


textile goods provided the workers of America had the 
purchasing power to consume them. More production 
would cheapen the cost and put this higher grade of goods 
within the reach of the workers themselves. But until 
there is some assurance that the result of greater effort will 
be greater justice and more service, rather than greater 
privilege for the few, the workers will continue to do 
only a fraction of what they are capable of. 

In this connection there comes to mind a clothing fac- 
tory where a sudden increase in wages and an announce- 
ment of a square deal brought about an astonishing 
increase in production. The workers, generally speaking, 
can do much more than they are doing, but it is not Just a 
matter of saying to them, “Go to, now, produce.” They 
want to know what their labor is going to mean. So 
should we. 


Our Own Part IN THE GAME 


The fact seems clear that the question of comparative 
living standards must be faced resolutely before anything 
definite can be said about “fair” wages and a “fair re- 
turn? It is to be feared that these terms have served 
chiefly as a smoke screen. The United States Railroad 
Labor Board has demonstrated how much difficulty even 
a government agency can get into by trying to maintain 
the concept “just and reasonable” without any compara- 
tive treatment of living standards and living costs, Unless 
we face this question we must be content to play the old 
game, whose stakes are material stakes, and whose spir- 
itual effect is a widening gulf between man and man. 


For tHE Discussion Group 


Most of us make some attempt at budgeting our ex- 
penditures; what criterion have we followed? Can this 
group agree on a reasonable budget of expense for a 
family of average size? 

Working people are commonly criticized for buying 
luxuries they cannot afford, and middle-class people are 
often criticized for “living beyond their income.” Is it to 


106 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


be taken for granted, then, that the chief requirement is 
to live within one’s income? 

Where do we get our living standards? Can we change 
them at will? Would it be an easier matter to simplify 
our living if groups of people tried it together? 

Were the British Quaker employers right in their state- 
ment concerning extravagance and “social efficiency”? 
What is an extravagance—an automobile? two automo- 
biles? a trip to Europe? What is the determining prin- 
ciple? i | 

Some Christians have laid down the rule that they 
should “not eat cake while any of their fellows were de- 
prived of bread.” Is that a safe rule to follow? Would 
such abstinence have any effect on the actual supply of 
bread? Would it have any moral effect? | 

Is the living-wage idea valid? How can it be de- 
fined ? 

*“‘A man is entitled to what he earns.’ Yes, but how can 
we determine what he earns? Some Christians consider 
that if a man works hard at useful labor, he “earns” a 
good living. What do you say? 

If some of us insist on having more than others can 
hope to have, are we violating the principle of fellowship ? 


CHAPTER XI 


CHRISTIANS AS INVESTORS—THE RISKS OF 
THE GAME 


Matthew 6. 19-23 


Oncr again, have we not overlooked an important part 
that many of us play as individuals in the industrial 
game? Does the ownership of stocks and bonds impose 
a definite obligation? Whose is the primary responsibility 
—the person who owns the security or the corporation 
director who determines policy in accord with what he 
thinks the owner desires? Is there any difference between 
the Christian investor and any other investor when proxies 
are turned in or coupons are clipped? What can a con- 
Sam stockholder do to secure recognition of his 
ideals ¢ 


Wuo ARE THE CAPITALISTS? 


It is when we come to the question of investment that 
we appreciate the full force of the figure of the game which 
we have been carrying through this whole series. We are 
all potential investors. It has been said with a good deal 
of truth that we are all potential gamblers. Now, there 
is no question at all as to the necessary part that capital 
plays in the world. Even those who are very hostile to 
what is known as the capitalist system—that is to say, to 
the system of production for private profit—recognize that 
capital as such is a necessity of the industrial world. 
Capital means equipment, machinery—everything in the 
nature of resources, except human resources, that makes 
it possible to carry on industrial enterprise. Capital is 
the social surplus, the savings of society which are used 
for the future production of goods. It is also the means 
by which the “time gap” is bridged between the beginning 
of an industrial process and the actual marketing ef the 

107 


108 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


product. There are many opinions as to how capital used 
in the production of goods should be owned and con- 
trolled, but these questions really belong in a course in 
economics. In our system capital is privately owned, and 
therefore all industry depends ultimately upon the in- 
vestor. 

It is a common error, often pointed out by bankers, that 
“capital” denotes chiefly rich and powerful investors. The 
bulk of the money to run business enterprises comes not 
from the wealthy (because there is not enough wealth con- 
centrated in a few hands to supply it) but from the great 
mass of men and women of moderate means. When this 
fact is recognized it throws new light on the responsibili- 
ties of capital. In the long run monetary power resides 
where political power resides—in the people themselves, 
excepting, of course, that section of the working class, far 
too large, which is not able to save and invest. But the 
difficulty lies, as it does in politics, in securing organ- 
ized action on the part of the multitude of individuals who 
count for little as they stand apart, but who could 
decisively influence the policies of great corporations if 
they stood together. And just as in politics the multitude 
lacks the knowledge, the initiative, and the sense of respon- 
sibility to play an intelligent part, so in business the ma- 
jority of investors are too ignorant of the facts and too 
timid or too little interested to exercise any important 
influence. 


Tur Turory or INTEREST 


In the old game that we have been considering, the 
investor is perhaps the hardest player. He usually in- 
vests his first earnings with a view to safety and a small 
but consistent reward. As his holdings increase, he begins 
to seek more lucrative investments and he is willing to 
take a greater risk because he has more resources to fall 
back upon; and in return for the greater risks he expects 
a larger reward. With the increase in risks there comes 
into existence what is known as speculative investment, 
where the person’s desire is not merely to obtain a divi- 
dend but to double or treble or to multiply manifold the 


CHRISTIANS AS INVESTORS 109 


value of the investment itself. That is to say, beginning 
with the buying of securities for the purpose of gaining a 
“fair return” in stated income, the business investment 
often becomes ultimately a gamble on an increase in the 
market values of securities or other property. We have 
already seen how the idea of interest itself was originally 
repugnant to the Christian mind and was, in fact, illegal 
in England until late in the sixteenth century. Since that 
time, however, comparatively few people have ever raised 
a question as to the ethical quality of interest. It is 
assumed that just as a person earns a money reward by 
working, so he earns a similar reward by abstaining from 
the use of his money in order that it may be productively 
employed. “Let your money work for you,” is an old 
investor’s motto. A new concept expressed by the words 
“fair return” has been evolved to cover the moral obliga- 
tions of investors. 


THe Prorrt Mortve 


But what about the speculative motive, or, in other 
words, the profit motive? Is it ever legitimate from a 
Christian point of view to choose deliberately an invest- 
ment regardless of its other qualities solely because it is 
likely to yield a return for which no effort has been made 
and no equivalent sacrifice suffered? Is it consistent 
with a Christian order that our motive should be to secure 
something for nothing? To illustrate, assuming that 
eight per cent or ten per cent is commonly accepted as a 
fair return on capital, is it legitimate to seek a hundred 
per cent, the first eight or ten of which would represent, 
on this basis, a “fair” return and the additional ninety- 
two per cent would be a sheer gratuity—something for 
nothing? To be sure, it may be asked what would become 
of the surplus earnings of a very profitable enterprise if 
they were not absorbed in dividends. If a great surplus 
accrues, it must accrue to somebody. One answer would 
be that all the surplus should become new capital, that is, 
should be “put back into the business.” But our inquiry 
has to do not so much with the actual distribution of 
wealth or capital as with the motives involved. 


116 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


A “Goop INVESTMENT’ —MORALLY 


This whole matter bites into the social conscience at the 
point where we discover the difference in the moral quality 
of investments. If all securities were of equal social sig- 
nificance and value, it might well be argued that that 
which offers the greatest return is the one to choose with- 
out reference to any other consideration. If the only 
important thing about money is what one does with it, 
the more one can make the better, so long as he keeps 
within the law. Indeed, there was a time when, while 
great emphasis was placed upon spending money, little 
was said concerning the ethical quality of the methods 
by which money was made. Now, however, “stewardship” 
is coming to be interpreted to cover the acquisition of 
wealth as well as its expenditure. A popular evangelist 
is reputed to have said, when criticized because of his large 
fees, that he gave a tithe of his income to the Lord, and 
it was no one’s business what he did with the rest. The 
utter inadequacy of such a defense from the modern Chris- 
tian point of view does not need to be pointed out. But 
we have much careful thinking to do before any consensus 
among Christian people can be arrived at as to what 
constitutes a valid motive in investment. Should we not 
be guided by a study of the actual social consequences of 
the imvestments themselves? What are some of these 
consequences and what are some of the evident differ- 
ences between various types of investment? 


Tuer Praoticat Trst 


First, there is the distinction corresponding to the one 
made earlier between occupations that are socially pro- 
ductive and those that are not. Might we not say that 
no person is justified in putting his money into an enter- 
prise which he would be unwilling on ethical grounds 
to engage in personally? He might, of course, be un- 
willing to enter it on other grounds, such as temperament 
or aptitude. But if he could not conscientiously perform 
a given act, how can he let his money hire someone else 
to do it? Then there is the question of the relative use- 


CHRISTIANS AS INVESTORS aa 


fulness of an industry or a business that is beyond criti- 
cism as to its moral character, as ordinarily considered. 
What will a Christian do when he has an opportunity to 
invest his money at eight per cent in a boot and shoe 
factory or at three per cent in annuity bonds of an educa- 
tional enterprise? Is there any moral quality in such a 
choice? This brings us to the main issue of the matter 
—the risks of the game. In the old game, risk was merely 
an incident to the play for profits. In the new game, the 
cooperative game, whose aim is the establishment of fel- 
lowship in the world, the risks are of a moral nature. 
They are undertaken in order that not only material but 
ae goods may be released upon the markets of the 
world. 


“SPECULATIVE INVESTMENTS” AND HuMAN VALUES 


A year or two ago a business man in New York pro- 
posed to a group of churchmen that a company should be 
organized which would invest half its resources in market- 
able securities paying current rates of interest, and the 
other half in an effort to rehabilitate the industrial estab- 
lishment of Europe. “Thus,” he said, “we can say to peo- 
ple that they may be fairly assured of an average return, 
and a much larger return if the European venture suc- 
ceeds, but that the latter portion of the investment is 
financially uncertain and may be lost. But that part of 
the money will be a spiritual investment and we will ask 
them to be willing to lose it in order to take the chance of 
being of service to the rest of the world.” Perhaps this 
distinction between types of investment throws some light 
upon the Christian principle. 

Some persons have expressed great interest in what 
might be called exploratory investments—that is to say, 
enterprises which involve experimentation in the fields of 
industrial organization. No matter how convinced indi- 
viduals may be on the point, society demands a demonstra- 
tion that the principle of brotherhood can be established 
in industry, that industrial democracy is a valid concept. 
How are we going to prove it? We have considered the 
requirements of our Christian faith which call upon us 


112 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


to make the experiment. But such experiments require 
money as well as faith. They require capital, equipment, 
brains. People must be found who are willing to invest 
their money at a small rate of interest and at more than 
ordinary risk in order to, test out the theories of Chris- 
tian idealism with respect to industrial organization. 
There is more than a fifty-fifty chance that many such 
experiments will fail before the proper adjustment of 
means to ends has been discovered. But can a faith that 
is not worth “putting something up on” be called Chris- 
tian? Donald Hankey said that religion is “betting your 
life that there is a God.” He had every right to say 
that: later he wagered his life “on Flanders Fields” and 
lost—and won! Is it not possible that the establishment 
of the Christian ideal in the world requires just such ad- 
venture ? 


Wuat Can One Lone Person Do? 


One of the writers, who had been investigating work- 
ing conditions in industry, was asked by a friend to in- 
form him concerning the labor policy of a certain concern 
which had advertised a bond issue. He wanted to buy a 
bond, provided he approved the labor policy of the con- 
cern in question. A ring on the telephone brought the 
perplexed retort, “What has the labor policy to do with 
buying a bond?” “You see,” it was explained, “this 
gentleman does not want to put his money into a concern 
whose labor policy he does not approve.” ‘This elicited 
many expressions of disgust and the interesting admis- 
sion that the office of the concern had experienced much 
annoyance during the day by requests for information 
about the labor policy. What would happen if the Chris- 
tian people of America for one week would take seriously 
their obligation as investors for industrial conditions in 
establishments which their money maintains? What 
would happen if they merely insisted on knowing the 
facts? What would have happened ten years ago to the 
twelve-hour day in the steel industry when a stockholders’ 
committee urged that the regime be done away with, if 
the Christian people who held stock in the corporation, 


CHRISTIANS AS INVESTORS 113 


or any considerable minority of them, had demanded that 
the long day be abolished? And that means, of course, 
if they had been willing, if necessary, to decline attrac- 
tive dividends rather than to share responsibility for an 
industrial regime that a Christian conscience could not 
approve. 


Tuer TREATMENT OF PROXIES 


But what good do isolated protests of this sort do? As 
in politics, it is perfectly obvious that people could do 
great exploits collectively, while separate and alone they 
are negligible. A young woman who is a small holder of 
railroad securities when asked, as usual, for her proxy 
came back with some pointed question as to labor policy, 
but was met only with courteous evasions. Can a person 
single-handed accomplish anything? Surely we should 
all grant that even if a person acting alone cannot register 
in any evident way, he can at least square himself with his 
conscience by acting alone! But there are definite ways 
of making protests, and it sometimes requires but a few 
protests to turn the scale in a matter of policy. If a 
few weeks of publicity and activity on the part of out- 
siders induced the heads of the steel industry to revise 
their judgment in the matter of the twelve-hour day, is it 
not reasonable to suppose that more persistent protests 
on the part of stockholders might have had a pronounced 
effect? A single stockholder may accompany his proxy 
for stockholders’ meeting with a definite proviso or pro- 
test concerning any matter of policy which he believes to 
involve an important moral principle. He may attend the 
meeting in person and require a public statement there 
concerning such important questions. He may claim the 
right to inspect the list of stockholders and then make it 
his business to approach his fellow security holders in 
relation to these moral issues. 


Waar Can Onze Do WirH A Dovustrrut Srcurtry ? 


In a small meeting of Christian people of inquiring 
mind where this question of morally safe investments was 
raised, a bond expert suggested that if anyone has con- 


114 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


scientious scruples against a particular investment, he has 
an obvious way out by simply disposing of the securities. 
But is not that too obvious? What is the net result of 
such action? The securities have passed out of the hands 
of a conscientious holder into the hands of one less con- 
scientious. The perplexed investor has simply found an 
obliging individual who will do his sinning for him. An 
unhappy solution, surely. In an extremity, a holder might 
call upon the corporation to take his securities off his 
hands and return the amount of his original invéstment. 
Probably most concerns would rise very promptly to such 
an occasion. But should not that be the last resort, after 
every possibility of bringing about a change of policy has 
been exhausted? Merely to unload the troublesome 
security upon someone else too strongly reminds one of 
the minister who said midway in his discourse, “And now, 
having looked the difficulty squarely in the face, let us 

pass on !” : 


FINANCIALLY SAFE oR MoraAtty SAFE? 


Business experts are likely to take the view that an in- 
vestment that is morally unsound is to be avoided for 
business reasons also. But does not this oversimplify the 
problem? What the business expert usually means by a 
morally unsafe investment is one that the business com- 
munity itself considers questionable. It would be the 
greatest mistake, and injustice as well, to overlook the 
importance that the business community attaches to 
integrity, honesty, and loyalty. But here is where our 
problem arises. Because business men are preoccupied 
with the rules of the game, many of the questions which 
socially minded Christians are asking about investments 
have as yet no meaning for them. A New York banker, a” 
man of high personal character and gentle, attractive 
personality, was asked by one of the writers about the 
relation of labor policy to the validity of industrial securi- 
ties. He replied that, of course, if an employer should 
shoot his men at sunrise some such question might be 
raised, but otherwise he could see no reason for contesting 
the validity of securities on moral grounds. Another 


CHRISTIANS AS INVESTORS 115 


banker remarked that the one great sin “below Fulton 
Street” is to have a bad credit; that other questions are 
of minor importance. We even hear of men of far from 
impeccable moral character in their private life who sur- 
vive in the financial community. The most questionable 
things are done by corporations in breaking faith with 
the public or with creditors and “got away with” so long 
as the concerns remain solvent. But these latter cases 
will be said to be exceptional; and doubtless they are. 
Nevertheless, the fact remains that it is precisely those 
matters in which the financial community is not interested 
that the conscience of the modern Christian is exploring. 
How does a concern treat its employees? What wages 
does it pay? Has labor a personal status or only a “‘com- 
modity” status in the industry? What is the policy of 
the concern toward the public? Is any moral principle 
recognized as to the relation between profits, prices, and 
costs? What is done with the surplus—is it poured out 
in dividends, or does the community share it in larger 
enterprise, increased production, more stable prices, and 
more employment? It may well be said that in the long- 
run the best moral policy is the best financial policy. But 
in the short run, with a view to immediate returns, who 
can say so? Oil and steel continue to sell on the securi- 
_ ties market no matter whether the workers put in long 
hours or not—and no matter how many lives may be sacri- 
ficed to the building up of a mammoth industry. 


For tHE Discusston Group 


Do you know any investment concerns that are ac- 
customed to include in their advices to investors the con- 
siderations referred to in this chapter? If not, what is 
the reason ? 

Js there any difference morally between one’s claim to 
money that he earns by labor or other service and his 
claim to money that his investments earn? If so, how 
would you state it? 

Is there any difference morally between money that is 
earned at the “market rate” of interest on capital and 
money that accrues from a lucky sale or purchase, or a 


116 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


sudden discovery of wealth—“unearned increment,” as it 
is sometimes called? 

Granted that all such gains belong rightfully to the per- 
son who acquires them, is there any special obligation 
attaching to the use to which they are put? 

Tf a Christian has an opportunity to invest his money 
at the same expected rate of return in an enterprise that 
is relatively sure but is a purely “business proposition” 
and also in an enterprise involving greater business risk 
but promising more in terms of social value and progress, 
what choice will he make? Can a general rule be laid 
down covering such a situation ? 

Ts one’s conduct as an individual investor a fair stand- 
ard by which to judge his social ethics? Does it reflect his 
personal character ? 

Would a person be justified in selling a stock or bond 
that troubled him to a person who had no scruples about 
it? If not, would he be justified in giving it te him? 
Why? 

Is there any sense in which “financially safe” and 
“morally safe” mean the same thing? Could a morally 
bad investment be doomed by the collective disapproval of 
Christian investors ? 


CHAPTER XII 


THE CHURCH AND INDUSTRY—THE SPIRIT OF 
THE GAME 


Romans 12. 9-21 


Wuar part should the church play in the redemption 
of industry? What part is it actually playing? Is the 
subject too technical for the pulpit to deal with? Should 
the church take up controversial matters at the risk of 
dividing its constituency? Does the church command the 
respect of labor to-day? Does it command the respect of 
capital, or only its indulgent good will? 


Tue Puptprr’s DILEMMA 


It is one thing to say that Christianity has a message 
for industry and quite another to attempt to relate the 
church as an institution to industrial problems. If the 
church undertakes to become in any way responsible for 
the industrial policies maintained by its members and 
within the community which it serves, all sorts of em- 
barrassing questions may arise. The minister may at- 
tempt to admonish where he is not very well informed ; 
he may arouse antagonisms that will interfere with the 
internal life and harmony of the church itself; unfair 
discrimination may result; unfair judgments may be pro- 
nounced; the minister may get beyond his depth in eco- 
nomics; and so on through a long list of objections which 
are often heard. All these things may happen, do happen. 
But entirely different inferences are drawn from them by 
different groups of people. Many, probably the majority, 
of ministers and laymen are inclined to drop a ques- 
tion when it gets hot—not necessarily because they lack 
courage, but because they don’t know what to do. 


Ministers Versus LAYMEN 


At present it appears that the ministers are a bit readier 
117 


118 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


to take advance ground than the laymen. In a convention 
of the Massachusetts Diocese of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church early in 1923 it was proposed to initiate under 
ehurch auspices an investigation of the textile industry in 
order to learn why so many crises occur in it that have 
serious human consequences. ‘The proposal was voted 
down, the ministers being conspicuous among the minority 
and the laymen among the majority. But it must be 
recognized that there is no rush on the part of either the 
clergy or the laity to get the church into active participa- 
tion in industrial affairs. The prevailing view seems to 
be that the church must teach, and the pulpit must preach 
Christian principles as applicable to industry, but that 
the application must be left to the individual Christian. 
There is, however, an insistent minority that urges a 
more aggressive policy. 'They think that unless principles 
are concretely applied they are not really taught. They 
hold that if the preacher is weak on economics, he ought 
to study it. They argue that the church which partici- 
pated in the prohibition movement cannot consistently 
keep out of the movement for industrial betterment. They 
prefer what they consider a more active and effectual min- 
istry on the part of the church even though some animosi- 
ties may result and some people may leave the church in 
consequence. 

There is room for suspicion that many preachers would 
find the method of confining themselves to general prin- 
ciples an easy way out. People seldom fight over “gen- 
eral principles.” The minister who pronounced from 
his pulpit the unexceptionable moral admonition “Thou 
shalt not lie” secured no visible response, but when he 
particularized: “Thou shalt not lie in making out thy in- 
come-tax return,’ one of his elders left the church. The 
experience of educators indicates that we learn by contact 
with the particular, not by discussing generalities. 


FREEDOM OF THE PULPIT 


There are a number of examples of ministers who have 
used their pulpits to expound the social gospel fearlessly 
and have maintained their positions. There are also not 


THE CHURCH AND INDUSTRY 119 


a few ministers who have lost their pulpits because of 
their liberal social views. It is often said that if a min- 
ister uses wisdom and maintains a Christian spirit, he 
can preach with the greatest freedom. Certainly it is 
important for the minister to remember that he is sup- 
posed to be a teacher of ethics, and that proclaiming is 
not necessarily teaching; also, that no good teacher tries 
to tell his whole story at once. There are preachers who 
have set about their social ministry as if they desired 
nothing so much as martyrdom, and one who is headed 
that way never has to wait very long. The progress of 
the Kingdom requires not merely men who are willing 
to lose their pulpits, but men who can retain them with- 
out compromise. Yet one would be rather credulous to 
suppose that mere tact and a benign countenance will get 
a socially minded preacher over the rough places. And 
why should the preacher be everywhere well spoken of? 
His Master most decidedly was not. And he gave his 
disciples a special warning against being spoken well of 
by everybody. John Wesley was troubled in spirit when 
he ceased to draw the hostile fire of the mob. He feared 
that if the “scandal of the cross” had ceased, there must 
be something wrong with his ministry. No doubt the 
founder of Methodism was a bit austere and not to be 
taken as an example in all things, but might not the 
modern preacher do well to take a Jeaf or two out of his 
book? There is a sense in which one is best known by 
the enemies he makes. Where would such a judgment 
leave most modern apostles of Christianity? If there is 
anything more questionable than to antagonize recklessly, 
it is to antagonize nothing or nobody. 


THe CouRAGE oF A LAYMAN 


There is surely something wrong with a church which 
lets its preacher stand on the firing line alone. Perhaps 
not many do just that, but is not the conception of the 
church as a militant organization getting a little rusty? 
It is a delightful thing for brethren to dwell together in 
peace and unity—if it is an honorable peace and a real 
unity. But the temptation to regard every departure 


120 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


from complacent harmony as an evil is very strong among 
both ministers and laymen. It is amazing how many 
legitimate complaints a congregation can find a way to 
bring against a preacher who talks too boldly about the 
social transgressions of church members or the social sins 
of society. His mannerisms become more conspicuous, 
his conversation is less attractive, his family is less 
popular, when seen against the background of distasteful 
social and economic doctrine. Yet there are outstand- 
ing examples of fighting laymen—that is, of men and 
women who deliberately share the prophetic office of the 
minister and in a pinch make his fight their own. It is 
doubtful if any minister can long succeed unless he 
rears up a group of such spirits to his support. They 
serve more than one purpose. They hold up the min- 
ister’s hands; they support his faith and courage when he 
weakens; they supply the lay wisdom that a clergyman is 
likely to lack. More than this, a group of laymen may 
even bring a timid or recalcitrant minister forward to the 
front-line defenses. There are probably many laymen 
who secretly entertain a sort of contempt for a minister 
who is not a bold ethical leader even though they conceal 
this feeling by an external courtesy and deference. 


Facing INTIMIDATION 


It is a question whether many laymen who have ceased 
to take their minister seriously would not be better pleased 
with him if he preached a more virile gospel, even though 
they winced under his message. A certain minister in 
New England was warned by his leading layman on a 
Saturday night that he should recede from his announced 
intention of speaking on a local industrial dispute the 
following day. He quietly told that gentleman that he 
never allowed anyone to take such a liberty with him and 
terminated the interview. The address was given as 
planned and the layman had a change of heart. It must 
have been something of this element of fearless finality 
in the ministry of Jesus that led men to say of him, “He 
taught as one having authority.” Would it not be a whole- 
some thing if Christian laymen should assume a larger 


THE CHURCH AND INDUSTRY 121 


measure of responsibility for the ethical platform of the 
church? If there is any courage needed, why leave it 
all to the man who has to risk his position and the living 
of his ehildren in order to exercise it? College trustees 
—or some of them—are coming to feel a definite respon- 
sibility, regardless of their own views, to preserve “aca- 
demic freedom.” A man well known in American finan- 
cial circles said recently of a college of which he was 
trustee: “I don’t approve of all the economics taught there, 
but I’m willing to have it taught. In a liberal institution 
the professors ought to be free.” Should not the preacher 
be as free as the college professor ? 


Tru CHurcH AS EMPLOYER 


At the convention of a great religious organization a 
year or so ago a telegram was received from the officers 
of a bookbinders’ union urging the churchmen to see to 
it that men and women who were working on Bibles and 
hymn books be paid a living wage! No matter what merit 
there may have been in their contention or their way of 
bringing it forward, the message of the union officials was 
rather startling. It called attention to the fact that 
a church body can have as serious a conflict with its em- 
ployees as often occurs in the case of a secular concern. 
_ And the points in dispute are the same—wages and work- 
ing conditions and recognition of the trade unions. It 
seems a little strange when a church body in its capacity 
as employer refuses to confer or to arbitrate or even to 
accept friendly offices of conciliation. Several of our 
church bodies have large publishing concerns. It should be 
said for them in this respect that probably in no indus- 
try have more provocative things occurred against the 
employers’ interest in recent years than in the printing 
trades. But the complexity of the problem only accentu- 
ates its importance. 

The duty of the church as an employer is not always 
clear. Is it sufficient that employees of the church be paid 
the going rate of wages, or should the church be con- 
sciously exemplary in these matters, going beyond what 
is required? Should the church as an employer seek to 


122 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


exemplify the employer-employee relationship that we try 
to bring about in industry? Is it not worth considering 
that the church’s business ventures should be deliberately 

ut on a basis of moderate profit and under the most 
skillful human management, in order to make a demon- 
stration of Christian principles, even though it might mean 
a temporary loss in revenue? 1 3 


Tap Cource sas InpUSTRIAL ARBITRATOR 


There is no question as to whether the minister can 
successfully act as arbitrator, for he has often done so. 
The dean of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in 
New York a few years ago gave an award in a quarry 
workers’ dispute that would have done credit to a skilled 
arbitrator. And the award was cheerfully accepted by 
both sides. There are doubtless many examples of such 
action that never become widely known. What could re- 
flect more honor upon the church than that its pulpit 
should be associated with the pronouncement of fair judg- 
ments in that area of human relationships which is most 
prolific of disturbances? But the minister when appealed 
to as an arbitrator acts as a citizen precisely as any other 
person would act under the same circumstances. It is a 
different situation when in the name of the church he inter- 
venes in a controversy against the opposition of one or 
both of the disputants. Is it a prerogative of organized 
religion to assert itself in such a situation? 

If the difficulty were one of law enforcement, the sup- 
pression of commercialized vice or the liquor or drug 
traffic, the church would not hesitate. Why should it 
hesitate in an industrial dispute which may have most 
serious, perhaps tragic, consequences for the whole com- 
munity? There is one obvious difference in the fact that 
in a reform crusade the church attacks outsiders only, 
while in an industrial dispute the disputants are probably 
both represented inside the church. “A house divided 
against itself cannot stand.” Hence, it is freely argued, 
the church should keep out. But that depends on how 
one looks at it. If regeneration, like charity, begins at 
home, should not the church act all the more quickly in a 


THE CHURCH AND INDUSTRY 123 


matter which threatens to disrupt its own fellowship? 
Would it, perhaps, strengthen the grip of the church on 
its membership and on its community if it were to disci- 
pline its members more resolutely? It is at least arguable 
that the church was a more admirable as well as more 
potent institution when its prelates did not hesitate to 
discipline severely for moral offenses and even to deny fel- 
lowship to the persistent offender. 


Tur CHurcH’s CONTRIBUTION TO INDUSTRY 


This suggestion of the authority of the church brings 
us again to the essential principle of Christianity which 
the church exists to exemplify—the principle of fellow- 
ship. It is central in Christian teaching that men are 
brothers, and unless the suggestions put forward in this 
course are wrong, the key to Christianity’s power is in the 
fact of fellowship. It would seem, then, that the church— 
not merely the local congregation, but the whole church— 
has a definite ministry to a divided industrial world, 
namely, to unite the fragments of that world within its 
own fellowship. Is it not strange that employers who 
continually call for the recognition of partnership in indus- 
try do not realize that the one institution whose avowed 
purpose is to create the spiritual harmony on which 
“partnership” depends is an indispensable ally? Though 
the spokesman of organized religion can serve the indus- 
trial expert but little in his own technical field, the church 
has its own field of expertness; it is the field of human 
relations. In this field should not the supremacy of the 
church be unchallenged? Is there not a danger that when 
called on to perform this high and spiritual office the church 
may find the altar fires of its own fellowship burning too 
low to melt the animosities that divide mankind ? 

The church’s office in promoting fellowship not only 
gives it authority ; it is the substance of the church’s oppor- 
tunity. By definition, the church is a community—the 
“communion of the saints.” Many of these “saints” have, 
it is true, few of the visible accomplishments of sainthood, 
yet they “belong” to the church, and the church is their 
schoolmistress. A noted Christian teacher once said, “The 


124 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


only way to know God as a Father jis to act like a son.” 
And no one can act like a son who cannot act like a 
brother. The chief business of the church, as Dr. Charles 
E. Jefferson has said, is to “build a brotherhood.” If the 
church can embrace, with a tie that binds, the men of 
industry who have been fighting one another, it will demon- 
strate its spiritual supremacy in the world. 


Tie DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CHURCH AND A CLUB 


But this is not an ice-cream-social performance. A 
prominent churchman recently proclaimed his resentment 
of the charge that the church is not a friend to the work- 
ingman. He cited the welcome given to the plainly 
dressed stranger, and things of that sort. All this may 
be wholly true yet wholly irrelevant. The fellowship 
we are talking about is easily faked—for a while. People 
very easily fool themselves about it. The biggest aristo- 
crats imagine themselves democratic. The real question 
is not one of tolerance or even courtesy; it is one of re- 
spect, honor, companionship, friendship. The fellowship 
of the church capitalizes the things men hold in common, 
not those that separate them. It is something quite other 
than what the social club or the trade association or the 
trade union offers. In it a man finds his brother because 
he needs him—needs him not as a social or a business asset, 
but as a fellow. ' This fellowship cannot be bought; men 
have renounced fortunes for it. When it is exchanged for 
material prosperity, the things men set their hopes upon 
turn ashes. When the church ceases to be the home of that 
kind of fellowship, it ceases to serve the purpose for which 
that institution exists. 


PREPARING YouNG ProrPLE FoR LIFE 


Such a spiritual fellowship cannot be created overnight ; 
It is the product of education. Here is a task for the 
church school. To-day, to be sure, it teaches boys and 
girls that love and service are the great things in life, 
but somewhere between the Sunday-school stage and the 
adult stage of church membership much of this idealism 
disappears. The young idealists go to work for the mature 

} 


THE CHURCH AND INDUSTRY 125 


realists, and in the process of coming to maturity and a 
knowledge of the world young people learn to distinguish 
between what is “practical” and what is “mere idealism,” 
just counsels of perfection, not to be taken too seriously. 
What is the reason? Is it, perhaps, to be found in our 
failure to teach Christian ethics concretely? We did 
not learn to walk while sitting in our high chairs. How 
can one learn what Christianity means for industry and 
business except by studying these subjects in the con- 
crete? An American member of the High Commission of 
the Rhineland, when relating to a group of ministers on 
his return to this country the tangle of European indus- 
try and trade, declared, “You ministers must study eco- 
nomics.” If the minister must get practical economics 
along with his ethics, what about the layman? 

In other words, the old game will “get’’ us all unless 
we are prepared and eager to play the new game. The 
stakes of the new game appeal only to those who have 
learned to love and honor their fellows and who can find 
satisfaction not in destructive competition, but only in 
mutual aid. It is the business of the church to prepare 
people to play for spiritual stakes. 


For tHE Discussion GROUP 


Which is the greater danger—that the pulpit will mis- 
place its influence in industrial affairs through lack of 
knowledge, or that it will have no influence at all? 

Would the average minister take a more active part in 
industrial affairs if he were assured of the sympathetic 
support of his laymen? Does the average layman want his 
minister to discuss these questions? 

Which is the proper course for a minister to follow— 

(a) Take sides definitely in industrial disputes when 
he is satisfied as to the merits of the controversy ? 

(6) Confine himself to the statement of general prin- 
ciples, and avoid pronouncing judgments? 

(c) Avoid industrial subjects altogether, giving his 
attention only to questions relating to individual char- 
acter and conduct? 

Do you know of cases where ministers have lost their 


126 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


pulpits through plain utterances on economic and indus- 
trial questions? Was it due to courage or to recklessness? 
What is the difference? 

Are the churches usually generous employers? Are you 
thinking now of the minister’s salary or the janitor’s? 
What about the church publishing houses and administra- 
tive boards? 

A Jewish community has been known to deny ritualistic 
burial to a man who during his life took usury. How far 
would a Christian church go in discipline for a social 
offense? How far has it a right to go? 

Does a person who violates Christian principles in his 
business continue to feel at home among church people? 
If so, does it indicate Christian charity on the part of 
the congregation or something else? 

What do you think of the suggestion that a church body 
might forego profits in its publishing enterprises, for ex- 
ample, in order to conduct experiments in industrial rela- 
tions? Would it be more useful as an example if it should 
operate avowedly on a business basis in order to demon- 
strate that Christianity is not inconsistent with business 
success ? 

Does the average Sunday school fit young people for 
sie part in the game of life? If not, what is the rea- 
gon ! 


CHAPTER XIII 


BUILDING THE FELLOWSHIP IN INDUSTRY— 
THE GREAT ADVENTURE 


2 Timothy 2. 3; Hebrews 11. 1; Revelation 21. 1-3 


Is the kind of religion we have been presenting in this 
course one to command the respect of virile men? Must 
we be pacifists to be Christians? Are we willing to be 
called pacifists if bearing our Christian testimony incurs 
that epithet? Will young men enlist for the new game 
as readily as for the old competitive struggle? Have we 
as Christians sufficient faith for the great adventure to 
make Christianity regnant in the world? 


A “Mascuuine” ReELicion 


Perhaps the mere use of such a title calls for an 
apology to women. But it embodies an issue which the 
ideas presented in this course are sure to encounter sooner 
or later. There is a popular tendency to give great honor 
to what are called “he-man” traits of character. The 
manner of life that seems to be most admired by women 
as well as men has a large measure of combat in it. What 
little honor is given to pacifism is apologetically rendered. 
It is considered at best a negative virtue. We should prob- 
ably all have to agree that when Roosevelt spoke 
about “spineless pacifists” he was far from the New-Testa- 
_ ment ideal, and inaccurate in his description, but there 
was something elemental in the characterization that no 
one can escape. 

It is related that an imaginative moralist visited a 
public school in Philadelphia and told the pupils about 
a boy who was threatened by a bully and escaped a trounc- 
ing by bestowing upon his assailant a big red apple. The 
story left the children “cold.” Then another visitor arose 
and innocently remarked that it was the boy who was able 
and willing to fight who got the apple. This commentary 


127 


128 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


brought a storm of applause. Perhaps this is typical in 
more ways than one. The boy who preferred peace to a 
thrashing, even at the cost of rewarding conduct that, 
should have been condemned, is taken as a type of those 
who repudiate force. Most people \are not sufficiently 
interested in the pacifist position to state it fairly. It is 
still taken for granted that combat plays a primary part 
in life, whether one thinks of individuals or of nations. 
Too generally people who profess Christianity may be 
classified, with reference to their attitude toward its teach- 
ings, in two groups: those who limit the sphere of its 
application and spend most of their time out of that 
sphere, and those who make their own version of Chris- 
tianity, putting into it the “pep” which they think it 
lacks as ordinarily conceived. 


INDUSTRIAL. WAR AND THE WARS OF NATIONS 


It might seem at first glance that we are here mixing 
up our course of study with one on international relations. 
But the fact is that the ethical problems of industry are 
‘one with the problem of war. It is the rivalries of indus- 
try and trade that constitute the most frequent cause of 
international disputes and hostile outbreaks. If the 
struggle going on in industry were satisfactorily termi- 
nated, there is good reason to think that there would sel- 
dom be occasion for war between nations. Moreover, the 
substitution of agreement for strife and of cooperation for 
competition is the same kind of a human task whether 
it is industrial groups or political governments that we 
seek to reconcile. It requires the same surrender of the 
“right” to get mad and demonstrate; the “right” to take 
what one has the power to take. It means getting one’s 
fun not out of trouncing someone but out of comrade- 
ship with him in doing something worth while both to him 
and to oneself. 


Tae THriItt or ComBAtT AND ADVENTURE 


There is something thrilling in war; everybody knows 
that. Likewise there is something thrilling in individ- 
ualistic industrial enterprise that develops independence, 


THE GREAT ADVENTURE 129 


fearlessness, and hardihood. Even the cruel principle of 
“survival of the fittest” has an austere sublimity about it 
which the apostles of individualism have always made 
much of. The war against war is a deliberate effort to 
substitute other virtues for those that are paid for in 
human blood, to find channels of heroism that will con- 
serve manhood rather than destroy it. If this be pacifism, 
we must make the most of it. At any rate it is anything 
but spineless. It is a man-sized job—if the twentieth 
century has one to offer. The redemption of industry is 
a part of that great task. It means finding some other 
foundation for the structure of enterprise, invention, and 
creation that the modern world is building than the old 
foundation that was laid in poverty and bitterness and 
the wrecks of those who were not stalwart enough to en- 
dure the strain. It means a federation of workers of 
hand and brain, a traffic in the satisfactions of fellowship, 
that will make man’s spirit supreme over the things of. 
the flesh. 


BonDAGE To Pacan IpRALS 


it would be far from correct to say that our industrial 
history has been barren of social achievement. The old 
individualistic game has created a mechanism of produc- 
tion that was undreamed of a few centuries ago. The 
Industrial Revolution was manifestly one of the outstand- 
ing material achievements of history. But this great 
mechanical achievement, furnishing as it does the indis- 
pensable basis for a universal culture, has been totally 
inadequate on the side of motive. It whipped men up to 
the limit of what “enlightened self-interest’? can accom- 
plish. It has not even surveyed the possibilities of co- 
operative good will. Reliance upon self-interest as a mo- 
tive makes inevitable the appeal to force as a method. 
Throughout industry to-day we find the easy assumption 
that force is the answer to any perplexing question that 
arises in the field of industrial relations. War in indus- 
try is an institution well established, financially well sup- 
ported, for which leaders are especially trained and a 
professional technique has been developed. The making 


130 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


of strikes is an art; equally so the breaking of strikes. 
If they should go out of vogue, a good many people would 
be out of a job. And they would not by any means be 
all labor leaders. Many men connected with manage- 
ment have as their chief qualification an ability to func- 
tion quickly and economically when “strong-arm” methods 
are desired. But these rather unlovely accomplishments 
have been carefully cultivated in industry on both sides 
and they cannot be scrapped overnight. 


Two Srets oF REVOLUTIONARIES 


Many people have become so weary of the contest going 
on in industry that they have felt like saying to the con- 
tending parties, “A plague on both your houses!” This 
feeling is responsible for the effort to take the whole 
matter out of the hands of employers and workers and 
put it in the control of the State. But that would be 
merely substituting a new regime of force for the old one, 
and it has thus far not succeeded. 

There are two groups of people who are to-day advanc- 
ing revolutionary doctrine with reference to the industrial 
-situation. On the one hand are those who advocate 
-abolishing summarily the present system of private prop- 
-erty and enterprise. On the other hand are those who 
advocate doing away with the machinery by which a 
‘beginning has been made of joint government in industry 
through organizations of employers and workers. The 
first group of propagandists is little listened to in this 
country, but the second group has produced a great deal 
of industrial unrest. Perhaps it is only fair to say that 
they have been actuated in their aggressiveness by fear 
of what the propagandists of socialism might do. The 
net result, however, seems to be that the attention of the 
labor movement is focused on the efforts of employing 
interests to destroy it, and this means a continuance of 
belligerent tactics on labor’s part. It is, to be sure, argu- 
able that the solution of our labor problems is to be 
brought about not through any existing form of organ- 
ization or any present device of bargaining and agreement; 
certainly we have a long way to go before we shall have | 


THE GREAT ADVENTURE 131 


an industrial government based on cooperation and good 
will. But those who are best informed and wisest look 
for the progressive redemption of the present industrial 
organization on both sides, not for the arbitrary overthrow 
of what has been gradually evolved in response to a neces- 
sity. Men cannot be made either happy or just until they 
are made free. Self-limitation in the interest of greater 
freedom—that is the spirit of the new game and the chart 
of the great adventure. 

Any plan for the reorganization of industrial life 
should take account of what we now find in industry—two 
fairly well-organized groups each contending for a set of 
“rights” which the other is unwilling or reluctant to recog- 
nize. To be sure, organized labor includes only a fraction 
of the industrial workers of America, but the fact re- 
mains that so many key industries, such as transporta- 
tion, coal mining, building, and printing, are strongly 
organized that the influence of the labor unions is quite 
out of proportion to their membership. This may be 
taken for granted, and would it not be wiser for employers 
and the public to accept it as a continuing condition in. 
industry ? 


THe REDIRECTION OF ForRCcE 


Given a free hand for the exercise of their proper func- 
tions, the belligerency of both workers’ and employers’ 
organizations may disappear. A wild lad who attached 
himself to a city Sunday school had his teachers nearly 
distracted with his disturbing conduct and the general 
destructiveness which organized itself wherever he was. 
By a stroke of inspiration he was appointed custodian 
of the hymn books. When that occurred he asked leave 
to address the school and made the following effective 
speech: “The first bloke that busts the back of one of these 
books will get his block knocked off.” It was not his 
destructiveness that was primary in the situation but his 
undirected activity. It was a simple matter to be use- 
ful when there was something worth doing at hand. The 
particular method of discipline that he adopted was hardly 
exemplary but that too improved in due course. 


182 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


Nrw INCENTIVES 


The building of fellowship in industry is going on 
to-day, slowly, to be sure, but it is going on. And those 
who are engaged in it are getting a greater thrill out of 
the process than ever they had out of the old game. The 
old game yielded compensations not to be despised, but 
they were material and soon consumed. There is a limit 
to what one can consume. 


“Ror you can only wear one tie, 
And one eyeglass in your eye, 
Have one coffin when you die, 

Don’t you know?” 


But the stakes of the new game are measured in per- 
sonality and power and the joy of fellowship and the com- 
mon quest of nature’s secrets and the conquest of nature’s 
forces. There are industrial workshops which are psycho- 
logical laboratories in which men and women are finding 
out the possibilities of joint effort and the strength of 
newly released motives. We are on our way to a great 
demonstration. Could anything be more thrilling than to 
have a part in it? | 


Wuere War Has Gtven Way To PRACE 


The maintenance of peace and a high production rate 
in the garment industry in Chicago during the last dozen 
years is a monument to the constructive powers of even 
the most aggressive forces in industry when there is a 
will to create something new in the field of human rela- 
tions. Here the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of 
America, one of the strongest and most aggressive, so far 
as its philosophy is concerned, of the labor unions in this 
country, have developed in cooperation with the employers 
a sort of constitution for industrial relations and indus- 
trial rights with the avowed end of strengthening the 
interests of all parties concerned. It would be hard, per- 
haps, to connect this movement in any definite way with 
the development of “Christian ideals in industry,” 
because these people are nearly all Jews. But it is not 
the first illustration of the fact that the Hebrew race, 


a 


THE GREAT ADVENTURE 133 


from which Christianity sprang, is likely to put the 
exponents of our religion under a heavy obligation for 
the refinement and application of Christian ideals. 

The work agreement that obtains in the factories of 
Hart, Schaffner & Marx in Chicago undertakes to secure 
to the employer the maintenance of “a high order of 
discipline and efficiency”; and to the workers in the plant 
“that they pass from the status of wage servants, with no 
claim on the employer save his economic need, to that of 
self-respecting parties to an agreement which they have 
had an equal part with him in making.” And as for the 
national union in whose name, representing the workers, 
the contract is negotiated, it undertakes “to maintain, 
strengthen, and solidify its organization so that it may be 
made strong enough . . to command the respect 
of the employer without being forced to resort to militant 
or unfriendly measures.” It seems impossible to contem- 
plate such a working agreement, whose success is a matter 
of several years’ demonstration, and still hold to the mih- 
taristic philosophy which so largely dominates the indus- 
trial world. 

To be sure, this plan of joint government is only the 
beginning of what we might call the creation of an indus- 
trial fellowship. It is still in the stage of bargaining, 
but there is the recognition of a mutual obligation to keep 
the agreement working and to maintain the integrity of 
the industry. It goes beyond the mere keeping of the 
industrial peace: the agreement calls expressly for 
“mutual consideration and concession, a willingness on 
the part of each party to regard and serve the interests of 
the other, so far as it can be done without too great a 
sacrifice of principle or interest.” Would not Jesus say 
to these Jews in the clothing industry, in so far as they 
seek to live up to such an ideal, “Ye are not far from the 
kingdom of God’? 


Tort New So.LiIpARITY 


It would be an imperfect account indeed if we should 
not notice such establishments as the Columbia Conserve 
Company, of Indianapolis, where a striking effort is be- 


134 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


ing made to organize the entire personnel, brain and hand 
- workers, into a self-governing industrial unit, and where 
the president is deliberately trying to make the organiza- 
tion so effective that it will not need him; the Dutchess 
Bleachery at Wappingers Falls, New York, where in a 
textile establishment which offers many obstacles to the 
creation of fellowship, a notable demonstration of joint 
management is going on and a true partnership of effort 
is in the making. If space permitted, a considerable list 
of fruitful experiments might be given. 

The remarkable thing about all this is the fact that 
there is growing up in these establishments that very 
loyalty to the industry which employers have complained 
was lacking in the labor movement. The “solidarity” of 
labor which the employer fears readily gives way to a 
new solidarity in which loyalty to the industry is primary, 
and the service of the community is an ultimate ideal. 

Industrial establishments can be found to-day that 
present all stages of transition, from the old game of com- 
petitive self-interest to the new game of mutual service. 
Tt is true that the most notable approaches to an indus- 
trial fellowship are found in small institutions. Large 
employers are wont to say that such idealistic undertak- 
ings could not be carried out in large concerns. But 
the experience of the small establishment is vital to the 
Christian quest in industry. Great movements have 
modest beginnings. The small establishment is the best 
experiment station. This is an important fact when it 
is remembered that the vast majority of industrial con- 
cerns are small enough to make such experimentation 
possible. There are difficulties all along the line, but 
what is Christian faith for? 


Tre GREAT ADVENTURE 


What is driving these employers and workers—these 
“idealists” who are so ready to set at naught industrial 
traditions? It is all very simple when you have watched 
them for a while. They are playing a great game. 
Profits and wages are of secondary importance when men 
engage in the great adventure of making a Christian 


THE GREAT ADVENTURE 135 


world. They feel the thrill of the fisherman-disciple who 
has heard the call, “Follow me, and I will make you a 
fisher of men”! To “carry on” there must be young 
men and women who will go into business precisely as 
others go into the foreign-missionary service. There 
must be young men of ideals who will take up industrial 
engineering as a profession. There must be men and 
women who will enter the labor movement with the same 
spirit that would take them into the most exalted public 
service. 

We quoted earlier a part of Burton Braley’s poem “Busi- 
ness Is Business,” In the concluding stanzas he has well 
characterized the great adventure: 


“Business is Business,” the Big Man said, 
“But it’s something that’s more, far more; 

For it makes sweet gardens of deserts dead, 
And cities it built now roar 

Where once the deer and gray wolf ran 
From the pioneer’s swift advance; 

Business is Magic that toils for man. 
Business is True Romance. 


“And those who make it a ruthless fight 
Have only themselves to blame 

If they feel no whit of the keen delight 
In playing the Bigger Game— 

The game that calls on the heart and head, 
The best of man’s strength and nerve; 
“Business is Business,” the Big Man said, 

“And that Business is to serve!” 


THe Conqurst or InpustrRY 


A religion to which the twentieth century will give 
allegiance must have a program as large as life. 'The 
biggest thing in life is the work men do; they can never 
be saved apart from it, only in it. Work itself must be 
redeemed, and the Christian program for its redemption 
is the building of the industrial fellowship. It is in the 
world of work, still more than on the far-flung battle line 
of our foreign missionary crusade, that Christianity must 
be vindicated and its supremacy established. Jt is in 
industry, where men have fought so bitterly, that the most 


136 CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN INDUSTRY 


obstinate resistance to the Christian faith is being put 
forth. Industry is the great modern mission field. Men 
are to-day walking and working in darkness under the 
domination of pagan ideals of self-interest and conflict. 
It is the faith of a modern Christian that Christianity 
can penetrate and dispel that darkness and, in Milton’s 
splendid metaphor, create a soul under the ribs of death! 


For rue Discusston Group 


Why do we hear so much about a man’s religion? Are 
the so-called “masculine” traits in our religion the best 
traits ? 

Does human nature require the satisfactions of con- 
quest? Must it be gained through .personal encounter? 
Does “peace on earth to men of good will” have any defi- 
nite relation to the world of business and industry ? 

Is our continued dependence on force—physical, mili- 
tary, and economic—due to a natural love of combat, or 
does fear play a part in it? 

Why is the military hero accorded first place in human 
esteem? Is this as true to-day as formerly? Who has 
gained the largest measure of satisfaction out of life— 
Marshal Foch or Thomas Edison? 

Ts there more romance in the struggles and hazards of 
business enterprise than in acts of moral heroism and 
social endeavor? Who had more fun out of living—Jacob 
Riis or the elder J. P. Morgan? 

What was the incentive of the “dollar-a-year men” who 
gave their services to the government during the war? Is 
it possible to develop a similar incentive in time of peace? 

Are the demonstrations of cooperation in industry that 
are cited in the text significant or are they the result 
of an unusual idealism of which most people are incap- 
able? What would the average employer say about them? 

To-day we send ministers, teachers, and doctors into 
our mission fields. Why not industrial experts and 
engineers ? 

Ts it fact or fancy that “business is true romance”? Is 
it more or less true than it used to be? What have we 
as individuals had to do with it? 


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